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OUR  W0p$  GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 

SHORT    BIOGRAPHIES 

OF   THE 

MEN  AND  WOMEN  MOST  EMINENT  IN 

Philanthropy;  Patriotism,  ^rt,  Literature,  Discovery,  Science,  Invention. 


TOR  ktt  NGt.  BVU  VOR 


BY 

SAMUEL  ADAMS  DRAKE, 


AUTHOR   OF    "NEW     ENGLAND     LEGENDS   AND^foLK     LORE,"    "NOOKS     AND 

CORNERS   OF   THE   NEW    ENGLAND   COAST,"     "  OLD    LANDMARKS   AND 

HISTORIC   PERSONAGES    OF   BOSTON." 


WITH 
Nearly  One  Hundred  Portraits  Emblematically  Embellished. 


H.  J.  SMITH  &  CO., 

CHICAGO  AND  PHILADELPHIA. 

1888. 


COPYRIGHT   BY 

J.    SMITH    &    CO. 

1887. 


PREFACE. 


bringr  within  the  limits  of  a   modest   volume  an 
& 

abstract  and  brief  chronicle  of  the  world's  progress 
since  the  introduction  of  the  art  of  printing,  has  been 
the  controlling  motive  in  the  production  of  "  Our  Great 
Benefactors."  While  in  no  sense  is  it  considered  ex- 
haustive of  the  subject,  the  privilege  of  selection  has 
been  used  in  as  discriminative  a  manner  as  seemed 
needful  to  this  general  survey,  and  to  the  distinct  purpose 
also  of  embodying  within  the  several  groups  of  eminent 
personages  contributing  to  it  such  only  as  have  an  un- 
disputed claim  to  be  classed  for  all  time  among  the 
benefactors  of  the  race.  This  design  has  eliminated 
from  the  work  all  strictly  military  heroes  or  persons 
of  merely  local  renown. 

The  biographical  articles  are  the  joint  production  of 
many  writers,  who  have  aimed  to  tell  briefly,  clearly,  and 
fairly  what  has  been  achieved  for  mankind  by  the  indi- 
vidual benefactor,  the  scope  or  limitations  of  his  mind  or 
work,  his  habits  of  thought  or  training,  or  the  specific 
causes  leading  up  to  the  result  accomplished.  These 


IV  PREFACE. 

elements,  rather  than  the  imparting  of  mere  encyclopae- 
dic information,  have  been  kept  in  view  by  the  several 
contributors.  An  epitome  of  the  world's  work  being 
thus  presented,  it  is  hoped  that  the  plan,  no  less  than 
the  treatment,  of  "  Our  Great  Benefactors "  may  find 
favor  with  the  public. 

THE  EDITOR. 


BIOGEAPHIES  WITH  PORTRAITS. 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  PATRIOTISM. 

PAGE. 

BACON,  ROGER Born  1214;  died  about  1292 18 

FRANKLIN,  BENJAMIN Born  1706;  died  1790 35 

HAMPDEN,  JOHN Born  1594;  died  1643 56 

LOCKE,  JOHN Born  1632;  died  1704 27 

MORE,  SIR  THOMAS Born  1478;  beheaded  1535 42 

NEWTON,  SIR  ISAAC Born  1642;  died  1727 13 

RUSSELL,  LORD  WILLIAM Born  1641 ;  died  1683 65 

SIDNEY,  SIR  PHILIP  Born  1554;  died  1586 48 

WASHINGTON,  GEORGE Born  1732 ;  died  1799 70 


PHILANTHROPY. 

ALICE,  PRINCESS Born  1843;  died  1878 220 

BELL,  ANDREW Born  1753;  died  1832 190 

BURRITT,  ELIHU Born  1810;  died  1879 186 

DARLING,  GRACE Born  1816;  died  1842 207 

FRY,  ELIZABETH Born  1780;  died  1845 96 

GARRISON,  WILLIAM  LLOYD Born  1804;  died  1879 149 

HAVELOCK,  HENRY Born  1795;  died  1857 212 

HEBER,  REGINALD Born  1783;  died  1826 in 

HOWARD,  JOHN Born  1726;  died  1790 85 

LANCASTER,  JOSEPH Born  1778;  died  1838 178 

LINCOLN,  ABRAHAM Born  1809;  died  1865 163 

MATHEW,  THEOBALD Born  1790;  died  1856 237 

MAURICE,  FREDERICK  DENISON. ....   Born  1805;  died  1860 193 

MOORE,  GEORGE Born  1806 ;  died  1876 228 

KEN,  BISHOP Born  1637 ;  died  1710 102 

PENN,   WILLIAM Born  1644;  died  1718 119 

PINEL,  PHILIPPE Born  1745;  died  1826 89 

ROMILLY,  SIR  SAMUEL Born  1757;  died  1818 1 29 

SELWYN.  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS Born  1809;  died  1878 201 

WHITBREAD,  SAMUEL Born  1758;  died  1815 137 

WILBERFORCE,  WILLIAM Born  1759;  died  1833 142 


VI  BIOGRAPHIES   WITH   PORTRAITS. 

LITERATURE  AND  ART. 

PAGE. 

ADDISON,  JOSEPH Born  1672 ;  died  1719 292 

BUCHANAN,  GEORGE Born  1506;  died  1582 253 

BUNYAN,  JOHN Born  1628;  died  1688 280 

BURNET,  BISHOP  GILBERT Born  1643 ;  died  1715 2«6 

BURNS,  ROBERT Born  1759;  died  1796 397 

CAMPBELL,  THOMAS Born  1777;  died  1844 365 

CAXTON,  WILLIAM Born  about  1412;  died  1492 431 

CHAUCER,  GEOFFREY Date  of  birth  uncertain ;  died  1400.  247 

COWPER,  WILLIAM Born  1731;  died  1800 327 

DICKENS,  CHARLES Born  1812;  died  1870 384 

EDGEWORTH,  MARIA Born  1767;  died  1849 339 

FLAXMAN,  JOHN Born  1755;  died  1826 469 

GOLDSMITH,   OLIVER Born  1728;  died  1774 319 

GRAY,  THOMAS Born  1716;  died  1771 307 

HANDEL,  GEORGE  FREDERICK Born  1685 ;  died  1759 447 

HAWTHORNE,  NATHANIEL Born  1804;  died  1864 402 

HOGARTH,  WILLIAM Born  1697;  died  1764 457 

HOOD,  THOMAS Born  1799;  died  1845.   3§i 

JAMESON,  MRS Born  1794 ;  died  1860 370 

JOHNSON,  SAMUEL Born  1709;  died  1784 301 

LAMB,  CHARLES Born  1775;  died  1834 357 

LONGFELLOW,  HENRY  W Born  1807;  died  1882 415 

MILTON,JOHN Born  1608;  died  1674. 275 

MORE,  HANNAH Born  1745;  died  1833 332 

SCOTT,  WALTER Born  1771 ;  died  1832 344 

SHAKSPEARE,  WILLIAM Born  1564;  died  161 6 258 

SMITH,  ADAM Born  1723;  died  1790 311 

SOUTHEY,  ROBERT: Born  1774;  died  1843 .  350 

STOWE,  HARRIET  BEECHER Born  1812 423 

WEDGWOOD,  Josi AH Born  1730;  died  1795 462 

WREN,  SIR  CHRISTOPHER Born  1632 ;  died  1723 436 


DISCOVERY  AND  EXPLORATION. 

BOONE,  DANIEL Born  1735 ;  died  1820 509 

COLI-MBUS,  CHRISTOPHER Born  about  1435 ;  died  1506 481 

COOK,  CAPTAIN  JAMES Born  1728;  died  1779 '.  495 

FRANKLIN,  SIR  JOHN Born  1786;  died  1847. .     501 

LIVINGSTONE,  DAVID Born  1815;  died  1873 517 

RALEIGH,  WALTER Born  1552,  died  1618 .....'.  488 


BIOGRAPHIES   WITH   PORTRAITS.  vii 


SCIENCE  AND  INVENTION. 

PAGE. 

ARKWRIGHT,  SIR  RICHARD Born  1732;  died  1792 559 

BELL,  ALEXANDER  GRAHAM 697 

BREWSTER,  SIR  DAVID Born  1781 ;  died  1868 611 

DAGUKRRE,  L.  J.  M Born  1789;  died  1851 681 

DAVY,  SIR  HUMPHREY ; . . . .  Born  1778;  died  1829 587 

EDISON,  THOMAS  ALVA Born  1847 650 

FARADAY,  MICHAEL Born  1791 ;  died  1867 600 

FULTON,  ROBERT Born  1765 ;  died  1815 574 

GREATHEAD,  HENRY Born  1757;  died  1813 581 

HARVEY,  DR.  WILLIAM Born  1578;  died  1657 527 

HILL,  SIR  ROWLAND Born  1795;  died  1879 617 

HOWE,  ELIAS Born  1819;  died  1867 663 

HUMBOLDT,  BARON Born  1769;  died  1859 542 

LINNAEUS Born  1707;  died  1778 533 

LYELL,  SIR  CHARLES Born  1797;  died  1875 625 

McCoRMicK,  CYRUS  HALL Born  1809;  died  1884 668 

MORSE,  SAMUEL  F.  B Born  1791 ;  died  1872 644. 

MORTON,  WILLIAM  T.  G Born  1819;  died  1868 687 

MILLER,  HUGH Born  1802;  died  1856 630 

SMEATON,  JOHN Born  1724;  died  1792 550 

STEPHENSON,  GEORGE Born  1781 ;  died  1848 580 

WATT,JAMES Born  1736;  died  1819 568 

WHEATSTONE,  SIR  CHARLES Born  1802;  died  1875 638 

WHITNEY,  ELI Born  1765;  died  1825 562 


I. 

PHILOSOPHY  AND   PATRIOTISM. 


SIR     ISAAC     NEWTON. 


SIR    ISAAC    NEWTON. 

[BORN  1642.    DIED  1727.] 

IN  a  lecture  on  the  Growth  of  Hypotheses,  which  Professor 
Whewell  gave  some  years  since  at  the  Royal  Institution,  he 
traced  the  gradual  development  of  the  theory  of  gravitation 
from  its  crude  beginnings  to  its  ultimate  form.  The  greatest 
achievements  in  science  are  seldom,  if  ever,  the  result  of  the 
labor  of  an  individual  mind.  The  most  important  truths  have 
generally  been  dimly  foreseen,  and  perhaps  partially  formu- 
lated, by  pioneers  in  science,  whose  glory  is  afterwards  eclipsed 
by  the  greater  lustre  of  the  master  mind  who  grasps  a  subject 
in  its  totality,  and  makes  one  section  of  human  inquiry  a  lucidly 
defined  and  finished  piece  of  work.  In  that  lecture  the  learned 
professor  showed  how  the  hypothesis  was  gradually  approached 
by  the  mental  steps  of  Kepler,  Galileo,  Borclli,  and  Descartes, 
but,  nevertheless,  that  it  was  left  comparatively  chaotic  till  New- 
ton brooded  over  it  and  said,  "  Let  there  be  light,  and  there 
was  light." 

When  every  abatement,  however,  has  been  made  from  New- 
ton's share  in  the  working  out  of  the  theory  of  universal  gravi- 
tation, there  yet  remains  a  titanic  achievement  before  which 
the  minds  of  more  than  ordinary  mortals  may  well  be  dum- 
founded  with  amazement.  Newton's  was  a 'mind  which  could 
never  rest  upon  a  mere  nebulous  notion ;  all  that  he  turned 
his  mental  gaze  upon  was  resolved  into  an  ordered  and  well- 
defined  system.  If  he  were  not  the  first  to  conceive  the  true 
mechanism  of  the  universe,  it  was  his  great  glory  to  have  in- 
vented a  method  of  testing  its  truth,  to  have  created  the  mathe- 
matics and  geometry  of  the  science  of  motion  which  enabled 


14  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

him  to  verify  the  hypothesis,  and  to  be  the  first  to  announce 
its  most  important  laws.  ' 

From  that  fortunate  moment  when  Newton  pondered  over 
the  fall  of  an  apple  the  fate  of  astrology  was  sealed.  We  can 
scarcely  realize  in  this  year  of  grace  what  a  Goliath  of  super- 
stition was  slain  by  that  pebble,  the  "  Principia."  We  must 
probe  the  history  of  the  times  immediately  preceding  Newton's 
before  we  can  obtain  any  adequate  notion  of  the  mischievous 
effects  of  astrology  on  the  human  mind,  and  the  impediment 
that  it  was  in  the  way  of  progress.  Newton,  with  unerring  aim, 
slew  occult  philosophy  at  a  cast.  From  his  day  the  intellectual 
field  was  freed;  physical  science  became  possible,  and  has  ever 
since  gone  on  conquering  and  to  conquer.  Still  we  must  at  all 
times  beware  of  hero-worship,  and  especially  of  the  tendency 
to  believe  our  great  philosophers  to  be  intellectually  infallible. 
To  the  public  mind  the  name  of  Newton  is  probably  more 
frequently  associated  with  the  theory  of  light,  and  more  espe- 
cially with  that  beautiful  experiment  with  the  prism  which  was 
supposed  to  illustrate  the  decomposition  of  light,  and  to  con- 
firm beyond  all  dispute  the  hypothesis  of  "emission"  which 
he  himself  had  propounded.  It  is,  however,  curious  and  in- 
structive to  note  that  Newton  rejected  that  very  undulatory 
hypothesis  which  has  since  become  the  accepted  theory,  —  a 
theory  which,  on  account  of  his  adverse  opinion,  was  con- 
demned in  no  measured  terms  by  his  contemporaries.  This 
circumstance,  though  it  may  not  adorn  the  tale,  at  least  points 
a  moral.  But  certain  characteristics  of  Newton,  which  we 
shall  presently  have  to  notice,  will  lead  us  to  think  that  he 
held  his  hypothetical  views  upon  "light"  quite  tentatively, 
contenting  himself  with  giving  to  the  world  only,  as  positively 
ascertained  facts,  the  results  of  his  experiments. 

The  habit  of  thinking  was  so  strong  with  Newton  that  it 
entirely  abstracted  his  attention  from  other  matters,  and  con- 
fined his  mind  for  the  time  being  exclusively  to  one  object. 
Thus  we  know  that  he  never  was  occupied  at  the  same  time 
with  two  different  scientific  investigations.  And  we  find  even 
in  the  most  beautiful  of  his  works  the  simple  yet  expressive 


SIR    ISAAC   NEWTON.  15 

avowal  of  the  disgust  with  which  his  most  curious  researches 
had  always  finally  inspired  him,  from  his  mind  being  contin- 
ually and  for  a  long  time  directed  to  the  same  object.  This 
accounts  for  that  absence  of  mind  which  was  one  of  his  most 
noticeable  characteristics,  and  for  that  seemingly  intentional 
secrecy  and  delay  in  publishing  his  discoveries  which  in  several 
instances  jeopardized  his  title  to  priority;  as,  for  instance, 
when  Mercator's  "  Logarithmotechnia "  was  published,  in 
which  was  revealed  a  method  of  obtaining  the  quadrature  of 
a  curve  by  expanding  its  ordinate  into  an  infinite  series,  —  a 
method  which  Newton  had  previously  discovered  and  formu- 
lated in  a  manuscript  long  since  stowed  away,  and  which  he 
had  almost  forgotten.  A  copy  of  Mercator's  work,  however, 
having  been  forwarded  to  Newton,  its  perusal  reminded  him  of 
his  own  earlier  discovery,  and  caused  him  to  make  search  for 
that  particular  manuscript  among  his  papers.  This  was  the 
treatise,  "Analysis  per  yEquationes  Numero  Terminorum  Infini- 
tas,"  —  the  very  treatise  which  so  astonished  Barrow  by  the 
wealth  of  the  analytical  discoveries  which  it  contained,  and 
which  were  of  far  greater  importance  than  the  particular  one 
revealed  by  Mercator,  and  which  was  at  the  moment  exciting 
such  general  admiration ;  but  at  the  time  when  Mercator's 
work  appeared,  a  new  series  of  discoveries  of  a  totally  different 
nature  had  taken  hold  of  and  entirely  engrossed  Newton's 
thoughts. 

Another  and  a  very  commendable  motive  of  Newton's  for 
laying  an  important  investigation  on  one  side  was  the  dis- 
covery of  a  discrepancy  between  his  hypothetical  views  and 
the  observed  facts ;  —  as  was  at  first  the  case  with  regard  to  the 
grand  hypothesis  of  universal  gravitation  which  had  dawned 
upon  him  on  noticing  the  fall  of  an  apple;  for  in  his  calcula- 
tions made  upon  the  imperfect  data  which  then  existed,  he 
found  that  they  gave  for  the  force  that  retains  the  moon  in  her 
orbit  a  value  greater  by  one  sixth  than  that  which  results  from 
her  observed  circular  velocity.  This  difference,  which  doubt- 
less to  any  other  person  would  have  appeared  very  small, 
seemed  to  his  cautious  mind  a  proof  sufficiently  decisive  against 

•  2 


16  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

the  bold  conjecture  which  he  had  formed ;  and  so  this  specula- 
tion was  laid  aside  for  years  till  a  fortunate  accident  revived 
his  interest  in  it.  Being  present  in  June,  1682,  at  a  meeting  of 
the  Royal  Society  in  London,  the  conversation  turned  on  a 
new  measurement  of  a  terrestrial  degree  recently  executed  in 
France  by  Picard,  and  much  credit  was  given  on  the  occasion 
to  the  care  taken  in  rendering  it  exact.  Newton,  having  noted 
down  the  length  of  the  degree  obtained  by  Picard,  returned 
home  immediately,  and,  taking  up  his  former  calculation  of 
1665,  began  to  recompute  it  from  the  new  data.  Finding,  as 
he  advanced,  the  manifest  tendency  of  these  numbers  to  pro- 
duce the  long-wished-for  results,  he  suffered  so  much  nervous 
excitement  that,  becoming  at  length  unable  to  go  on  with  the 
calculation,  he  entreated  one  of  his  friends  to  complete  it  for  him. 
This  time  the  agreement  of  the  computed  with  the  observed 
result  was  all  but  complete,  and  Newton  ceased  to  doubt,  after 
having  been  during  so  many  years  kept  in  suspense,  about  the 
eminently  important  law  that  attraction  diminishes  inversely  as 
the  square  of  the  distance ;  and  no  sooner  had  he  recognized 
its  truth,  than  he  penetrated  instantly  to  its  most  remote  conse- 
quences, and  pursued  them  with  a  vigor,  a  perseverance,  and 
a  boldness  of  thought  which  till  that  time  had  never  been 
displayed  in  science.  Indeed,  it  seems  hardly  probable  that  it 
will  at  any  future  time  be  the  destiny  of  another  human  being 
to  demonstrate  such  wonderful  truths  as  these,  —  that  all  the 
parts  of  matter  gravitate  towards  one  another  with  a  force 
directly  proportional  to  their  masses,  and  reciprocally  pro- 
portional to  the  squares  of  their  mutual  distances ;  that  this 
force  retains  the  planets  and  the  comets  round  the  sun,  and 
each  system  of  satellites  around  its  primary  planet ;  and  that 
by  the  universally  communicated  influence  which  it  establishes 
between  the  material  particles  of  all  these  bodies  it  determines 
the  nature  of  their  orbits,  the  forms  of  their  masses,  the  oscil- 
lations in  the  fluids  which  cover  them,  and,  in  fine,  their  small- 
est movements,  either  in  space  or  in  rotation  upon  their  own 
axes,  and  all  conformably  to  the  actually  observed  laws.  The 
finding  of  the  relative  masses  of  the  different  planets,  the  de- 


SIR    ISAAC   NEWTON.  \J 

'termination  of  the  ratio  of  the  axes  of  the  earth,  the  pointing 
out  the  cause  of  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes,  and  the  dis- 
covery of  the  force  exercised  by  the  sun  and  moon  in  causing 
the  tides,  were  the  sublime  objects  which  unfolded  themselves 
to  the  meditations  of  Newton,  after  he  had  discovered  the 
fundamental  law  of  the  system  of  the  universe.  Can  we  won- 
der at  his  not  being  able  to  complete  the  calculation  which  was 
leading  him  to  a  conviction  that  the  discovery  was  achieved? 

Though  England  may  regard  Newton  as  one  of  her  own 
special  glories,  his  benefaction  was  not  to  her  only,  but  to  the 
world.  It  was  one  of  which  every  civilized  community  could 
avail  itself;  none  could  monopolize  it.  The  steam-engine  was 
for  many  years  monopolized  by  England ;  but  the  "  Prin- 
cipia,"  as  soon  as  published,  became  the  common  right  of  the 
nations.  Newton's  were  labors  for  which  wealth  could  scarcely 
be  expected  in  a  very  material  community ;  but,  strange  to  say, 
he  reaped  a  competence  and  a  knighthood,  perhaps  rather  for 
superintending  the  stamping  of  the  coin  of  the  realm  than  his 
country  with  the  impress  of  his  own  genius. 

Newton  was  born  at  Woolsthorpe,  in  Lincolnshire,  December 
25,  1642  (O.  S.),  the  year  in  which  Galileo  died.  From  early 
youth  he  manifested  an  ingenious  mechanical  turn,  and  a  taste 
for  drawing  and  painting,  He  entered  Trinity  College,  Cam- 
bridge, in  1660.  The  method  of  fluxions,  the  theory  of  univer- 
sal gravitation,  and  the  decomposition  of  light  —  that  is  to  say, 
the  three  grand  discoveries  which  constituted  the  glory  of  his 
life  —  were  conceived  in  his  mind  before  his  twenty-fourth  year, 
and  no  work  of  any  great  import  was  attempted  after  his  forty- 
fifth.  The  "Principia"  appeared  complete  in  1687.  He  was 
elected  President  of  the  Royal  Society  in  1703,  and  was 
knighted  by  Queen  Anne  in  1705.  He  was  twice  in  Parlia- 
ment, in  which,  however,  he  made  no  great  figure,  and  died  in 
London,  March  20,  1727.* 

i  Sir  Isaac  Newton's  house  and  observatory  in  St.  Martin's  Street,  Leicester 
Square,  were  till  within  a  few  years  intact ;  since  then  the  observatory  has  been 
b.irbarously  deposed  and  carried  off, — it  is  supposed  to  America. 


1 8  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 


ROGER    BACON. 

[BORN  1214.    DIED  ABOUT  1292.] 

TN  a  century  notable  for  intellectual  and  literary  activity,  the 
-•-  name  of  Roger  Bacon  stands  distinct  and  alone.  While 
his  contemporaries,  Thomas  Aquinas  and  Bonaventura,  were 
merely  theologians,  and  Albertus  Magnus,  though  a  student  of 
natural  science  and  mathematics,  essentially  a  man  of  his  own 
century,  Bacon  aimed  at  all  attainable  knowledge  with  an  in- 
satiable vigor  of  application  that  astonished  his  contemporaries, 
and  made  discoveries  which  are  among  the  scientific  material 
of  the  present  time.  His  ideas,  his  estimate  of  the  age  in 
which  he  lived,  his  regard  for  the  kind  of  scholarship  then 
held  in  the  highest  repute,  and  his  own  methods  of  study, 
place  him  intellectually  among  the  best  scientists  of  modern 
times.  All  other  scholars  of  the  thirteenth  century  —  the 
schoolmen,  as  they  are  called — were  content  to  build  upon 
the  lines  laid  down  by  Aristotle  or  Plato,  dividing  themselves 
into  the  once  famous  classes  of  Nominalists  and  Realists,  wa- 
ging an  interminable  war  of  words,  and  shedding  the  contents 
of  numberless  inkhorns  over  the  most  trivial  wrangles.  The 
real  topics  at  issue  between  the  irreconcilables  of  either  party 
were,  after  all,  mere  questions  of  standpoint.  The  belligerents 
would  insist  on  looking  in  opposite  lines  of  sight  at  certain 
abstract  conceptions  which  with  marvellous  ingenuity  had  been 
deduced  from  the  writings  of  the  two  Greek  masters;  and  the 
result  was  endless  quibbling,  much  philosophic  rancor,  and  a 
general  mill- horse  kind  of  progress  in  the  subjects  thus  quintes- 
sentially  investigated.  Bacon  was  one  of  the  very  few  schol- 
ars of  the  thirteenth  century  who  saw  and  despised  the 
emptiness  of  the  scholastic  philosophy.  As  parts  of  a  merely 
formal  science,  good  for  disputations  and  well  adapted  for 


ROGER     BACON 


ROGER   BACON.  21 

university  wit-sharpening,  the  developments  of  the  various 
Angelic,  or  Seraphic,  -or  Subtle,  or  Irrefragable  doctors  were 
all  that  could  be  desired;  but  to  the  soul  hungering  for  real 
knowledge,  for  insight  into  the  ways  of  God  with  man,  for  a 
rational  acquaintance  with  natural  laws,  they  were  emptier 
than  the  wind.  It  is  a  singular  though  trifling  coincidence  that 
the  great  inductive  philosopher  of  the  sixteenth  century  should 
be  called  Francis  Bacon,  and  that  the  so-called  Baconian  phi- 
losophy should  be  virtually  identical  with  that  propounded  by 
the  mediaeval  Franciscan. 

Roger  Bacon  was  born  at  Ilchester,  in  Somersetshire,  in 
1214.  After  making  extraordinary  progress  in  the  regular 
studies  of  the  monastic  school  and  the  University  of  Oxford, 
where  he  was  taught  by  the  distinguished  scholar,  Edmund 
Rich,  afterwards  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  he  proceeded  to 
Paris  to  complete  his  education.  Here  he  distanced  most  of 
his  competitors,  but  was  ever  discontented  with  the  vanity  of 
his  literary  acquirements.  His  opinion  of  the  Aristotelian 
logic  was  that  it  simply  tended  to  promote  and  propagate 
ignorance.  He  was  immeasurably  more  strongly  attracted  by 
the  charms  of  physical  research. 

The  secrets  of  nature  were  to  him  the  only  secrets  worth 
investigation.  And  his  works  still  extant  clearly  show  that  he 
had  the  right  method  of  study,  especially  that  extraordinary 
book  which  cost  him  so  much  toilsome  research  and  so  vast  an 
expense,  the  "  Opus  Majus."  Not  that  his  method  was  nearly 
as  complete  as  the  "  Novum  Organon  "  of  his  great  namesake, 
but  it  was  certainly  more  profitable  than  the  "  Vetus  Organon  " 
of  the  master  of  the  mediaeval  world.  Without  detracting  from 
the  grandeur  and  completeness  of  conception  and  arrangement 
which  mark  the  Aristotelian  logic,  it  must  be  admitted  that  th$ 
interpretation  of  nature,  considered  by  all  philosophies  to  be 
the  proper  function  of  human  intelligence,  is  much  more  prob- 
able when  attempted  through  the  observation  of  natural  phe- 
nomena than  through  the  formularies  of  Barbara  celarent  darii 
and  the  rest  of  the  jargon,  not  inaptly  rounded  off  with  the 
grandly  sounding  ferio  baralipton  of  Moliere's  "  Bourgeois 


22  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Gentilhomme."  A  physical  science  which  could  deduce  its 
facts  from  foregone  conclusions  was  not  the  science  to  satisfy 
the  mind  of  any  true  lover  of  nature.  It  is  no  little  credit  to 
the  University  of  Oxford  that  in  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth 
century  she  could  produce  men  like  Bacon  and  Robert  Grosse- 
teste  and  Richard  Fishacre,  —  men  who  were  not  bound  by  the 
little  circle  of  dialectic  subtleties,  but  who  had  made  substan- 
tial progress  in  good  practical  knowledge  of  material  things. 
At  that  time  Paris  was  held  to  be  the  leading  university  in 
Europe,  and  when  Bacon  repaired  thither  it  was  with  the  hope 
of  obtaining  the  best  teaching  that  could  possibly  be  had.  He 
obtained  the  degree  of  doctor  in  theology,  the  highest  the 
university  could  afford ;  but  he  returned  to  Oxford  dissatisfied 
and  disappointed.  It  is  generally  said  that  he  entered  the  fra- 
ternity of  the  Cordeliers,  or  Minorites,  as  the  Franciscans  are 
variously  called,  while  he  resided  in  Paris. 

His  by-name  of  the  Wonderful  Doctor  was  won  through  his 
marvellous  novelties  in  physical  science.  His  devotion  to  this 
branch  of  research  was  constant  and  unwearied.  In  twenty 
years,  which  he  spent  with  the  most  assiduous  industry  in  col- 
lecting facts  and  making  experiments,  he  gained  the  title  of 
magician,  and  expended  upwards  of  two  thousand  French  livres 
of  the  period,  upon  books,  instruments,  and  lectures.  And 
believing  that  there  should  be  the  closest  connection  between 
science,  literature,  and  religion,  he  studied  thoroughly  the 
Latin,  Greek,  Hebrew,  and  Arabic  languages,  in  order  that  he 
might  read  the  masterpieces  of  the  ancients  in  the  original 
tongues.  With  Plato,  he  looked  upon  mathematics  as  the  true 
keystone  of  the  sciences.  He  was  the  first  to  point  out  the 
accumulated  errors  of  the  Julian  calendar,  and  in  1264  pro- 
posed to  Pope  Clement  IV.  to  rectify  the  calculations.  A 
copy  of  his  corrected  calendar  is  still  preserved  in  the  Bodleian 
Library. 

In  optical  science  not  only  does  he  point  out  the  chief  facts 
of  refraction  and  other  cognate  phenomena,  but  he  applies  his 
knowledge  to  the  construction  of  lenses.  He  made  spectacles, 
he  says,  for  the  use  of  the  aged.  In  geography  he  mastered 


ROGER    BACON.  .  23 

all  that  was  then  known,  and  threw  out  several  very  shrewd 
conjectures  with  regard  to  facts  only  verified  since  his  time. 

But  all  his  knowledge,  so  far  from  placing  him  in  his  own 
age  on  the  pinnacle  of  fame  and  loading  him  with  wealth  and 
honor,  only  resulted  in  disappointment,  misfortune,  and  loss. 
Knowledge  so  uncommon  and  talents  so  brilliant  as  to  be 
beyond  the  comprehension  of  his  fellow-monks  were  danger- 
ous possessions.  His  somewhat  inflated  language — a  fault  due 
in  part  at  least  to  the  Latinity  of  the  schools  —  drew  upon  him- 
self the  jealousy  of  the  brotherhood  to  which  he  belonged. 
His  pretensions  were  narrowly  scrutinized,  his  character  im- 
pugned, and  at  length  he  was  solemnly  charged  with  atheism 
and  imposture. 

It  was  not  altogether  owing  to  his  reputation  for  magical  and 
astrological  acquirements  that  Bacon  was  opposed  and  even 
persecuted  by  his  own  order,  nor  was  it  altogether  the  result  of 
jealousy.  It  might  be,  and  indeed  was,  the  case  that  in  conse- 
quence of  some  suspicion  as  to  his  faith  he  was  prevented  from 
reading  his  lectures  to  the  younger  students  of  the  university; 
but  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  he  urged  his  views 
with  regard  to  the  ignorance  and  immorality  of  both  monks 
and  clergy  with  very  much  more  zeal  than  discretion.  This 
was  probably  the  true  cause  of  both  his  inhibition  and  his 
imprisonment.  In  1266  the  Pope,  Clement  IV.,  to  whom  he  had 
sent  some  specimens  of  his  labors,  wrote  to  him  desiring  to 
see  the  whole  of  his  work.  To  oblige  that  potentate,  there- 
fore, he  at  once  collected,  enlarged,  and  completed  his  various 
treatises,  and  sent  them  by  one  of  his  own  scholars  to  Rome. 
The  collected  works  thus  united  into  one  whole  he  styled  his 
"Opus  Majus,"  or  "Greater  Work."  It  is  still  extant,  and  was 
edited  and  published  by  Dr.  Jebb  in  1773.  Twelve  years  after- 
ward the  work  was  completed.  Bacon  was  imprisoned  by  order 
of  the  general  of  his  order,  as  some  say  on  account  of  certain 
treatises  on  alchemy  which  he  had  written.  It  is  added  that 
this  same  general  afterwards  set  him  at  liberty  and  became  his 
scholar.  We  must  not  be  too  ready,  however,  to  accept  the 
various  tales  that  are  told  of  the  wonderful  friar ;  for  his  life 


24  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

formed  one  of  the  marvellous  "  chap-books  "  which  used  to  be 
so  popular  among  the  poorer  class  of  readers.  Eventually  he 
was  released,  and  applied  his  remaining  days  to  the  composi- 
tion of  his  "  Compendium  of  Theology,"  his  last  work,  a  manu- 
script copy  of  which  exists  in  the  Royal  Library  in  the  British 
Museum.  He  died  in  the  college  of  the  Franciscans  at  Oxford, 
on  the  nth  of  June,  1292  or  1294,  —  it  is  not  certain  which 
year,  —  and  was  buried  in  the  Franciscan  church. 

He  was  beyond  doubt  the  most  extraordinary  man  of  his 
time.  He  possessed  critical  skill  in  the  three  learned  lan- 
guages, and,  had  he  never  been  famous  for  scientific  attain- 
ments, would  have  attained  celebrity  as  a  linguist  and  a 
theologian.  But  his  great  misfortune  seems  to  be  that  he 
lived  too  soon.  Born  some  three  hundred  years  before  Galileo, 
it  is  easy  to  see  how  his  profound  and  accurate  scientific  knowl- 
edge could  not  be  understood  or  accepted  by  his  contempo- 
raries. He  excelled  in  mathematics ;  in  mechanics  np  such 
genius  had  arisen  since  the  days  of  Archimedes. 

Every  school-boy  knows  the  story  of  the  brazen  head,  and  - 
the  stupid  wonder  of  the  poor  monk  who  heard  the  marvel- 
lous words,  "Time  will  be,  —  time  is, — time  is  past."  The 
"  chap-book  "  tells  the  story.  But  his  skill  in  astronomy  was 
still  more  remarkable ;  for,  as  already  mentioned,  he  was  the 
first  to  detect  and  to  correct  the  error  in  reckoning  which  had 
crept  into  the  calendar.  His  plan  of  correction  was  much  more 
complete  and  accurate  than  the  one  actually  adopted  in  the 
pontificate  of  Gregory  XIII.  His  historical  works  were  volu- 
minous and  exhaustive;  but  the  knowledge  which  was  most 
appreciated,  and  at  the  same  time  feared,  in  his  ow^n  day  was 
that  of  chemistry.  He  was  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the 
discoveries  of  the  Arabians  in  that  department  of  science. 
Whatever  other  persons  may  be  credited  with  the  discovery  of 
gunpowder,  he  certainly  was  acquainted  with  its  composition 
and  its  effects.  The  art,  so  called,  of  transmuting  metals  of 
course  formed  part  of  his  researches,  and  also  the  composition 
of  that  tincture  of  gold  which,  under  the  name  of  the  elixir 
vitce,  was  hoped  to  be  a  complete  panacea  for  all  ills,  and  even 


JOHN     LOCKE 


JOHN    LOCKE.  27 

a  defence  against  death  itself.  To  those  who  desire  to  drag  on 
an  interminable  mortality  in  this  present  unsatisfactory  human 
world,  the  recent  claims  of  lemon-juice  are  perhaps  equally 
convincing.  But  if  Bacon  had  some  of  the  follies  of  his  con- 
temporaries he  was  by  no  means  singular;  his  very  slight 
faults  in  this  respect  are  more  than  atoned  for  by  the  infinite 
excellence  of  his  labors  for  the  furtherance  among  mankind  of 
sound,  accurate,  and  practical  knowledge.  He  had  the  great- 
est reverence  for  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  carefully  studied  the 
languages  in  which  they  were  written,  under  the  impression 
that  they  contained  all  true  science  and  the  elements  of  all  use- 
ful knowledge,  —  an  opinion  of  the  Bible  that  is  not  yet  extinct. 
Apart,  however,  from  his  weaknesses  and  errors,  of  which  few 
were  merely  personal,  sufficient  is  still  related  of  him  to  show 
his  undoubted  claim  to  rank  among  the  true  benefactors  of 
mankind. 


JOHN     LOCKE. 

[HORN  1632.    DIED  1704] 

'"T^HE  habit  of  forming  hasty  generalizations  is  perhaps  at 
•*-  the  foundation  of  most  of  the  differences  of  opinion  which 
affect  society.  It  is  encouraged  largely,  no  doubt,  by  language 
itself;  for  putting  aside  all  such  words  as  are  employed  in  the 
merely  grammatical  mechanism  of  speech,  many  of  those 
which  are  employed  as  names,  instead  of  being  the  names  of 
real  things,  or  thoughts  or  sensations  mental  and  physical,  are 
merely  the  names  of  imaginary  or  fictitious  ones.  Or  if  they 
do  really  denote  true,  substantial  objects,  those  objects  are  not 
the  ones  which  the  speaker  believes  them  to  be.  Thus,  in 
one  way  or  another,  false  conclusions  are  reached  at  times  by 
everybody.  Nor  practically  can  it  ever  be  otherwise.  People 
have  not  time  to  go  sifting  and  refining  and  testing  and  ana- 
lyzing all  their  words  for  the  sake  of  an  ideal  super-angelic 


28  OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

perfection.  Hence  it  may  be  confidently  relied  upon  that  doc- 
tors will  always  disagree.  Opinions  will  always  differ.  Even  if 
reasoning  were  perfect,  things  would  still  be  looked  at  from 
different  points  of  view.  Hence  a  system  of  morals  or  philoso- 
phy which  should  claim  the  consent  of  all  mankind  is  utterly 
beyond  humanity.  Nevertheless  it  does  certainly  seem  possible 
that  if  the  so-called  philosophers  would  condescend  to  talk 
about  what  they  thoroughly  understand,  in  language  which 
their  hearers  also  may  thoroughly  understand,  and  leave  all  the 
rest  unsaid,  the  world  of  earnest  thinkers  would  be  brought 
considerably  nearer  unanimity  than  they  are  at  present. 

It  was  the  opinion  of  John  Locke  that  knowledge  would  have 
been  very  much  more  advanced  if  the  endeavors  of  those  who 
sought  after  it  had  not  been  much  cumbered  with  the  learned 
but  frivolous  use  of  uncouth,  affected,  or  unintelligible  terms. 
Hence  it  may  be  inferred  that  in  the  philosophic  sense  —  and, 
let  us  add,  in  this  sense  only,  not  in  the  religious,  as  is  com- 
monly, but  unthinkingly,  supposed  — John  Locke  was  a  sceptic. 
The  one  characteristic  of  his  mind  above  all  others  was  clear- 
ness. The  mischief  of  philosophy  is  not  that  philosophers 
cannot  see  as  plainly  as  other  men,  but  they  imagine  they  can 
see  where  they  really  cannot.  It  was  Locke's  virtue  to  avoid 
this  Charybdis ;  not  that  there  was  no  Scylla  for  him  to  wreck 
upon,  but  he  at  least  did  not  endeavor  to  conceal  a  void  by 
making  it  a  darkness.  The  endless  disputations  of  philoso- 
phers led  him  to  suspect  that  they  were  misled  by  indefinite 
words  or  defective  conceptions ;  so  he  proposed  to  clear  away 
these  metaphysical  mists  by  distinctly  ascertaining  the  grounds 
and  limits  of  human  knowledge.  He  commenced  by  an  in- 
vestigation into  the  properties  of  the  human  understanding. 
He  worked  out  his  idea  in  a  masterly  treatise,  distinguished 
for  its  equal  modesty,  tolerance,  and  acuteness.  Like  Bacon, 
he  preferred  the  method  of  experiment  to  that  of  speculation, 
and  applied  that  method  to  the  investigation  of  our  inner 
nature.  It  will  give  us  an  interesting  glimpse  perhaps  into  the 
growth  of  his  opinions,  if  we  follow  him  from  the  university. 
He  was  born  at  Wrington,  near  Bristol,  in  1632,  and  was  the 


JOHN    LOCKE.  29 

elder  of  two  sons.  His  father  had  served  as  captain  in  the 
Parliamentary  forces  during  the  civil  wars,  but,  having  suc- 
ceeded in  retaining  a  portion  of  his  estates,  was  able  to  bring 
up  his  sons  with  liberality.  The  future  metaphysician  was 
accordingly  sent  to  Westminster  School,  whence  in  due  time 
he  passed  to  Christ  Church,  Oxford.  He  had  always  expressed 
a  fondness  for  medical  studies,  and  had  so  far  progressed  in 
the  science  of  medicine  on  leaving  college  as  to  obtain  the 
public  praise  of  Sydenham.  The  profession  of  medicine,  how- 
ever, was  robbed  of  an  ornament  in  Locke  by  the  offer  of  an 
appointment,  in  1664,  as  secretary  to  Sir  Walter  Vane,  envoy 
to  the  Electoral  Court  of  Brandenburg.  Similar  appointments 
on  his  return  in  the  following  year  were  offered,  but  declined. 
Among-  the  many  temptations  held  out  to  him  was  the  offer  of 
church  preferment  in  Ireland  if  he  would  take  orders.  "  I  am 
sure,"  he  says,  in  reply  to  the  Duke  of  Ormond,  who  made 
the  proposal,  "  I  cannot  content  myself  with  being  under- 
most, possibly  the  middlemost,  in  my  profession ;  and  you  will 
allow,  on  consideration,  care  is  to  be  taken  not  to  engage  in 
a  calling  wherein  if  one  chance  to  be  a  bungler  there  is  no 
retreat." 

So  he  settled  again  in  Oxford,  where  he  made  the  acquaint- 
ance of  Lord  Ashley,  afterwards  Earl  of  Shaftesbury.  The  ac- 
quaintance ripened  into  an  intimacy  which  lasted  very  nearly 
to  the  end  of  his  life.  In  the  course  of  their  truly  fraternal 
friendship  they  passed  their  time  chiefly  between  Exeter  House, 
in  the  Strand,  and  Oxford,  in  both  places  meeting  and  mixing 
with  the  most  distinguished  men  of  the  age.  It  was  after 
many  conversations  with  society  of  this  character  that,  in  1670, 
he  threw  out  the  idea  of  his  "  Essay  on  the  Human  Under- 
standing." And  doubtless  it  was  owing  to  the  difficulty  which 
Locke  found  in  pressing  the  truth  of  his  principles  in  conver- 
sation that  he  determined  to  put  his  conclusions  into  writing. 
Encouraged  by  his  friends,  he  worked  out  the  project  so  rapidly 
and  with  such-  fulness  that  in  the  course  of  a  year  he  had  it 
completely  in  shape.  The  essay  was,  however,  kept  in  manu- 
script for  many  years.  At  the  university  he  had  devoted  him- 


30  OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

self  chiefly  to  classical  studies,  but  the  classics  had  not  entirely 
taken  up  his  thoughts.  One  of  his  favorite  authors  was  Des- 
cartes, whose  exceedingly  clear  and  attractive  writings  inspired 
him  with  ardor  for  the  cultivation  of  metaphysical  studies. 
The  theory  of  Innate  Ideas  was  the  one  point  on  which  he  did 
not  hold  with  the  illustrious  Frenchman  ;  but  for  the  most  part 
he  was  captivated  with  his  mathematical  distinctness  and  sim- 
plicity. Locke  contested  the  hypothesis  of  Innate  Ideas,  and 
endeavored  to  prove  by  the  Baconian  inductive  method  that 
all  our  representations  are  acquired  by  experience.  The  two 
ultimate  sources  of  all  our  representations  he  maintained  to  be 
impressions  through  the  internal  senses,  and  reflection,  which 
he  termed  an  internal  sense,  being  an  internal  perception  of 
the  operations  of  the  mind.  This  caused  his  system  to  be 
called  one  of  Sensationalism.  The  details  of  this  system,  of 
course,  are  too  extensive  to  be  dealt  with  in  our  present  limits. 
But  his  oft-quoted  doctrine  that  the  soul,  like  a  piece  of  white 
paper  (tabula  rasa),  merely  receives  the  impressions  of  the 
two  sense-faculties  of  perception  and  reflection  without  adding 
anything  thereto,  forms  the  basis  of  his  theory  of  Education. 
He  originated  many  striking  suggestions  with  regard  to  lan- 
guage, and  gave  a  definition  of  knowledge  which  at  any  rate  is 
clear,  distinct,  and  comprehensible.  He  defines  knowledge  to 
be  the  perception  of  the  connection  and  agreement,  or  want  of 
connection  and  agreement,  between  certain  representative  ideas. 
We  see  at  once  that  this  definition  is  one  to  which  universal 
assent  cannot  be  given,  since  he  describes  the  principles  of 
thought  and  knowledge  to  be  all  derived  and  secondary.  He 
deduces  all  knowledge  from  experience,  but  his  analysis  only 
touches  its  material  part.  He  leaves  out  the  very  question 
which  causes  all  the  uncertainty  and  dispute,  namely,  \.\\Q  formal 
part,  —  that  apparently  unknowable  link  between  the  known 
and  unknown  which  is  at  once  our  human  pride  to  possess  and 
our  humiliation  not  to  comprehend.  Hence,  as  Tenneman  says, 
"  he  maintains  the  possibility  of  a  demonstrative  knowledge  of 
the  existence  of  God  and  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul,  and 
endeavors  to  erect  a  system  of  metaphysics  on  the  uncertain 


JOHN    LOCKE.  31 

foundation  of  empirical  knowledge."     Here  was  the  Scylla  on 
which  he  split. 

Locke's  great  object,  according  to  his  own  statement,  was  to 
inquire  into  the  origin,  reality,  limits,  and  uses  of  knowledge ; 
and  in  order  to  render  this  investigation  profitable,  his  aim, 
in  the  first  place,  was  to  liberate  philosophy  from  the  vain  and 
endless  disputations  and  barren  hair-splittings  which  had 
characterized  its  profession  from  the  times  of  mediaeval  scho- 
lasticism. The  new  theory  gained  adherents  through  its  very 
common-sense  plausibility.  Thoroughly  exhausted,  flat,  stale, 
and  unprofitable  had  become  the  old  method  of  philosophizing. 
Locke  came  in  with  his  system  as  a  plain  and  definite  theory 
to  account  for  the  generation  of  thought.  His  sensationalism 
is,  at  any  rate,  not  the  purely  theoretical  sensationalism  of  his 
imitator  Condillac.  It  is  true  that  the  doctrine  of  Locke  ignored 
the  existence  of  all  ideas  involving  the  notions  of  universality, 
necessity,  and  infinity,  looking  upon  necessity  as  generality, 
and  upon  infinity  as  immensity,  and  reducing  them  to  mere 
negations,  or  things  having  no  known  limits.  By  affirming  the 
necessity  of  reflection  as  an  essential  part  of  the  cognitive 
faculty,  Locke  at  least  left  room  for  human  liberty,  for  a  will, 
and  for  a  personal  conscience ;  but  Condillac,  by  his  so-called 
simplification,  dispensed  with  reflection  and  traced  all  knowledge 
to  sensation  alone.  Thus  Condillac  reduced  mind  to  a  mere 
bundle  of  sensations;  but  not  even  he  sounded  the  lowest  depths 
of  this  "  facilis  descensus."  It  was  left  to  Cabanis  to  touch  the 
very  floor  of  the  abyss,  and  to  bring  metaphysics  within  the 
region  of  material  physiology.  To  say  that  the  opinions  of 
the  last  of  the  encyclopaedists  form  the  basis  of  our  present 
advanced  physiological  theories  of  mental  structure,  would 
perhaps  be  going  too  far ;  but  it  is  ground  on  which  we  do  not 
think  it  either  wise  or  profitable  to  tread  in  this  connection. 
Locke  believed  the  freedom  of  the  understanding  to  be  under- 
mined by  the  Innate  Idea  theory  of  his  favorite  master,  and 
he  set  himself  the  task  of  opposing  it  with  a  theory  of  his  own. 
The  theory  was  this,  —  no  authoritative  belief  exists  in  the  mind 
which  has  not  an  origin  in  experience.  He  could  not  conceal 
3 


32  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

from  himself  the  conviction  that  the  most  extensive  human 
beliefs  were  shaped  and  tinged  by  the  varying  experiences  of 
the  nations  and  individuals  who  held  them.  Hence  his  own 
faith  in  his  experimental  doctrine  of  knowledge.  Leibnitz  had 
still  to  write  that  masterly  critique,  "  Nouveaux  Essais  sur  1'En- 
tendement  humain ;  '  and  so  the  weakness  of  his  theory  had 
not  been  brought  home  to  him.  Nor  had  Kant  as  yet  added 
to  the  intuitional  doctrines  of  Descartes  their  strongest  confir- 
mation by  his  strict  definition  of  the  domain  of  that  essential 
faculty.  Locke's  philosophy  was  practical.  His  theory  was 
devoted  to  a  thoroughly  practical  and  English  object.  He  was 
no  hair-splitting  dogmatist,  but  a  clear-headed  earnest  thinker 
who  aimed  at  a  manageable,  definite,  and  universally  practi- 
cable method ;  and  if  he  omitted  certain  occult  elements  in 
metaphysical  inquiry  it  was  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  pro- 
ducing a  lucid  and  tangible  system,  free  from  the  wearying 
uncertainty  and  mystification  of  the  conflicting  systems  which, 
as  a  thinker,  it  was  his  misfortune  to  inherit. 

In  1683,  owing  to  political  troubles  in  which  Lord  Shaftes- 
bury  became  involved,  both  he  and  his  patron  retired  into 
exile  in  Holland.  In  doing  this  he  incurred  the  displeasure  of 
the  English  Government,  and  was  deprived  by  royal  mandate 
of  the  studentship  which,  equivalent  to  a  fellowship  in  other 
colleges,  had  been  his  chief  means  of  support.  Thus,  in  the 
language  of  Fox,  "  without  the  shadow  of  a  crime,  he  lost  a 
situation  attended  with  some  emolument  and  great  convenience, 
and  the  university  was  deprived  of — or  rather  thus,  from  the 
base  principles  of  servility,  did  she  cast  away — the  man  the 
having  produced  whom  is  her  chiefest  glory."  It  was,  no  doubt, 
owing  to  this  exercise  of  paltry  tyranny  and  injustice  that 
Locke  was  provoked  to  take  up  the  decided  position  which  he 
afterwards  assumed  as  a  political  writer,  and  to  put  forth  his 
celebrated  "  Letters  on  Toleration."  The  first  letter,  written  in 
1687,  was  published  twice  in  London  during  the  year  1690,  the 
year  in  which  first  appeared  his  other  and  still  more  celebrated 
treatise,  the  "  Essay  on  the  Human  Understanding." 

The  Revolution  enabled  him  to  return,  not  only  to  England, 


BENJAMIN     FRANKLIN. 


BENJAMIN    FRANKLIN.  35 

but  to  his  studentship  at  Oxford.  But  his  life,  though  still  busy 
with  incessant  occupation  of  one  kind  or  another,  was  drawing 
to  a  close.  He  lost  his  friend  Lord  Shaftesbury ;  and  though 
the  place  was  somewhat  filled  by  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  to 
whom  he  dedicated  his  great  work,  Locke  seemed  to  have 
suffered  an  irreparable  loss.  His  health,  never  very  strong, 
began  to  give  way.  In  1695  he  published  his  "  Reasonableness 
of  Christianity,"  and  a  short  commentary  on  the  Apostolic 
Epistles.  The  spring  of  the  year  1704  came  without  bring- 
ing its  accustomed  renovation  to  his  wasting  frame.  In 
a  letter  written  on  the  ist  of  June  to  Mr.  King,  he  plainly 
stated  his  conviction  of  the  near  approach  of  death.  Almost 
his  last  words  were,  "  that  he  had  lived  long  enough,  and  that 
he  thanked  God  he  had  lived  a  happy  life ;  but  that,  after  all, 
he  looked  upon  this  life  to  be  nothing  but  vanity."  He  died 
on  the  28th  of  October,  1704. 


BENJAMIN    FRANKLIN. 

[BORN  JAN.  17,  1706.    DIED  APRIL  17,  1790.] 

TN  how  many  autobiographies  shall  we  find  the  story  of  a 
•*•  lengthy  and  well-spent  life  so  modestly  told  as  in  that  of 
Franklin?  The  celebrated  philosopher  carried  his  avoidance 
of  self-praise  to  a  pitch  that  leaves  the  reader  half  inclined  to 
censure  him.  Not  content  with  setting  down  his  faults  in  full, 
he  all  but  omits  the  history  of  his  labors,  and  leaves  his  virtues 
wholly  to  the  record  of  others.  The  book  that  Benjamin  Frank- 
lin, the  statesman  and  scientific  discoverer,  gave  to  the  world, 
does  little  more  -than  describe  the  fortunes  and  misfortunes  of 
Benjamin  Franklin  the  journeyman  printer.  When  the  writer  has 
reached  that  point  in  his  career  where  years  and  honors  began 
to  fall  heavily  on  him,  he  abruptly  ends.  He  felt  as  all  men  truly 
great  must  feel.  The  seedtime  of  his  life  he  might  himself  be 


36  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

permitted  to  describe ;  the  harvest  that  he  reaped  had  best  be 
enlarged  upon  by  the  pens  of  others. 

Franklin  at  eighteen  and  Franklin  at  eighty  are  contrasted 
with  all  the  sharpness  of  effect  in  which  Dame  Fortune  some- 
times delights.  In  1723  the  future  ambassador  to  France  and 
signer  of  treaties  entered  Philadelphia  in  search  of  work,  hav- 
ing left  home  to  escape  from  the  tyranny  of  a  brother.  Dressed 
in  rough  workman-fashion,  and  bearing  legibly  about  him 
the  marks  of  hardship  and  long  travel,  he  could  scarcely  be 
accounted  a  youth  whose  condition  and  prospects  augured 
eminent  success  in  life.  Of  the  money  that  had  been  in  his 
purse  at  starting,  a  single  dollar  was  all  that  remained.  Going 
into  a  baker's  shop,  he  spent  part  of  this  slender  capital  in  the 
purchase  of  three  large  rolls.  "  I  had  often  made  a  meal  of 
dry  bread,"  is  his  quiet  comment  on  the  circumstance.  A  roll 
under  each  arm,  and  eating  the  third,  he  walked  forward 
through  the  streets  of  the  town,  and  was  seen,  as  he  passed  her 
father's  door,  by  the  girl  destined  to  become  his  wife.  Their 
love  was  not  born  of  this  first  sight;  for  the  figure  he  cut 
seemed  to  her  both  awkward  and  ridiculous. 

Sixty-two  years  later  he  re-entered  Philadelphia.  Very 
different  was  this  last  visit  from  the  first.  The  streets  were 
splendid  with  decorations,  and  crowded  with  citizens  eager  to 
welcome  him.  He  was  now  the  man  whom,  next  to  Washing- 
ton, Americans  delighted  to  honor.  As  commissioner  at  the 
Court  of  France,  he  had  brought  to  a  successful  issue  the 
difficult  and  delicate  mission  intrusted  to  him.  His  scientific 
reputation  was  European,  and  his  "  Poor  Richard's  Maxims  " 
were  in  the  hands,  as  well  as  the  mouths,  of  all  his  countrymen. 
And  therefore,  putting  aside  for  the  moment  republican  sim- 
plicity, the  inhabitants  of  Philadelphia  received  with  almost 
royal  honors  the  man  whose  abilities  and  achievements  were 
accounted  extraordinary  throughout  the  civilized  world. 

Such  prosperity  had  no  ill  effect  upon  the  subject  of  it. 
Sagacity,  sound  common-sense,  and  energy  were  the  features 
that,  above  all,  distinguished  the  character  of  Franklin.  To 
however  difficult  a  pass  life  might  bring  him,  he  had,  in  general, 


BENJAMIN    FRANKLIN.  37 

sense  to  discern  the  right  road  and  strength  to  follow  it.  This 
long  gap  of  sixty-two  years  we  can  but  imperfectly  fill  up  in 
this  article,  for  it  covers  the  important  period  connecting  the 
first  foreshadowing  of  the  American  revolt  against  Great 
Britain  with  achieved  independence.  And  in  all  this  Franklin 
bore  so  honorable  and  conspicuous  a  part  that  the  narration 
alone  would  demand  many  pages  for  the  most  concise  presen- 
tation of  those  events  with  which  his  career  is  associated.  We 
may  say,  however,  since  brevity  is  thus  imposed  upon  us,  that 
if  he  is  not  the  First  American,  Franklin's  title  to  be  considered 
the  Second  will  hardly  be  contested  by  the  best  judgment  of 
his  own  countrymen.  In  any  definition  of  the  misused  phrase, 
Franklin  was  a  great  man.  Whether  the  having  raised  himself, 
by  the  force  of  his  own  talents,  from  poverty  and  obscurity  to 
a  commanding  position  among  his  contemporaries,  shall  be 
accepted,  —  and  this  is  the  world's  estimate  of  greatness ;  or 
whether  a  more  impartial  consideration  of  what  he  actually 
accomplished  for  the  good  of  mankind  shall  make  up  the  ver- 
dict; or  whether  those  splendid  natural  gifts  which  enabled  him 
to  grasp,  and  in  no  small  measure  to  influence,  the  course  of 
public  events,  shall  confirm  the  decree, — Franklin's  place  in 
history  is  secure.  It  is  unique.  There  is  nowhere  a  more 
forceful  example  of  what  a  man  endowed  with  brains,  energy, 
and  sagacity  may  achieve.  Franklin  possessed  all  these.  Step 
after  step,  the  tallow-chandler's  son  ascended  the  ladder;  but 
he  began  at  the  foot,  and  he  never  stopped  until  he  had  reached 
the  topmost  round. 

Franklin's  parents  were  too  poor  to  give  him  a  liberal  edu- 
cation, too  humble  to  look  beyond  the  lowliest  pursuits  for  a 
career.  The  boy  could  go  to  school  only  when  he  was  not 
wanted  at  home.  But  these  deficiencies  were  made  good  by 
the  boy's  own  intuition  that  knowledge  was  power,  and  his 
dogged  determination  to  possess  it  at  any  cost.  He  read 
everything  that  he  could  lay  .hold  of,  wrote  out  his  thoughts 
upon  what  he  had  read,  compared,  analyzed,  pondered,  disci- 
plined his  mind  and  hand,  until  he  had  acquired  that  clear,  pure, 
concise,  and  solid  style  which  distinguishes  everything  that 


38  OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

emanated  from  his  pen.  Addison,  he  tells  us,  was  his  literary 
model;  and  certainly  Franklin's  state  papers,  his  public  and 
private  correspondence,  his  philosophical  essays,  show  that  he 
was  no  unapt  pupil  of  this  great  master  of  style.  In  every- 
thing else  the  pupil  surpassed  the  master. 

When  Franklin  was  twelve  years  old  he  was  bound  as  an 
apprentice  to  his  brother  James,  who  in  a  few  years  started  a 
newspaper  in  Boston,  Franklin's  native  town.  The  lad  first 
tried  his  hand  at  writing  ballads,  which  were  printed  and 
hawked  about  the  streets,  and  had  a  great  sale,  although  he 
tells  us  in  his  Autobiography  that  they  were  wretched  stuff,  — 
mere  "  blind-men's  ditties."  Growing  bolder,  he  wrote  anony- 
mous pieces  upon  current  topics,  which  were  slipped  under  the 
door  of  the  printing-office,  and  were  printed  in  the  paper  without 
a  suspicion  on  the  part  of  any  one  that  the  quiet  boy  who  stood 
over  the  press,  inking  the  forms,  was  the  author.  Thus,  in  the 
midst  of  the  most  irksome  drudgery,  made  worse  by  his 
brother's  harsh  treatment,  Franklin's  mind  steadily  developed  ; 
for,  hard  as  the  labor  was,  and  meagre  as  was  the  pittance  doled 
out  to  him,  the  boy  let  no  opportunity  slip  to  store  his  mind  with 
the  information  thus  thrown  in  his  way.  And  opportunity,  we 
may  say,  makes  the  man.  This  brings  Franklin's  life  up  to  the 
first  period  we  have  spoken  of,  when  he  left  his  native  city  to 
better  a  condition  which  could  hardly  have  been  worse,  while 
to  him  it  had  grown  too  intolerable  to  be  borne  longer. 

While  still  no  more  than  a  boy,  the  insincere  promises  of  a 
pretended  patron  had  led  him  to  cross  the  Atlantic.  Arrived 
in  London,  his  hopes  of  profit  and  preferment  vanished  with 
the  rapidity  common  to  dreams.  Many  youths  of  nineteen 
would  have  given  way  to  despair  on  finding  themselves  left 
friendless  and  penniless  in  a  strange  land;  but  Franklin,  with 
great  good  sense,  bethought  himself  of  his  former  occupation 
as  a  compositor,  and,  having  speedily  obtained  work,  contrived 
for  above  a  year  to  support  not  only  himself  but  an  unlucky 
and  somewhat  idle  comrade  who  had  accompanied  him. 
While  thus  employed,  his  health  and  strength  furnished  to  his 
companions  striking  lessons  on  the  advantages  of  sobriety. 


BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN.  39 

"  I  drank  only  water,"  he  tells  us  in  his  Autobiography ;  "  the 
other  workmen  were  great  drinkers  of  beer.  On  occasion  I 
carried  up  and  down  stairs  a  large  form  of  types  in  each  hand, 
when  others  carried  but  one  in  both  hands.  They  wondered  to 
see,  from  this  and  several  instances,  that  the  '  Water  American,' 
as  they  called  me,  was  stronger  than  themselves,  who  drank 
strong  beer."  Clear-headed  in  youth  as  in  age,  Franklin  had 
already  discovered  how  graciously  Temperance  treats  her  ser- 
vants, and  was  enlisted  for  life  in  her  cause. 

The  years  passed,  and  with  the  passage  of  each  there  came 
some  change  in  the  life  of  Franklin.  He  returned  to  his 
adopted  Pennsylvania,  and  by  degrees  raised  himself  to  the 
position  of  a  foremost  man  in  the  colonies.  In  1730  he  mar- 
ried Deborah  Read,  the  lady  of  whom  the  anecdote  of  the  rolls 
is  related.  In  1752  a  kite  and  a  thunder-cloud  rendered  him 
suddenly  famous.  He  had  become  convinced  of  the  identity  of 
lightning  with  electricity,  and  after  careful  meditation  on  the 
subject,  succeeded  in  verifying  his  theory  by  the  ingenious 
experiment  so  frequently  described.  To  the  upright  stick  of  a 
kite  he  fastened  an  iron  point.  The  part  of  the  kite-string  he 
held  in  his  hand  was  of  silk,  the  remainder  of  hemp  ;  and  where 
the  hempen  and  silken  strings  met  he  attached  a  key.  A 
thunder-cloud  approached,  and  Franklin  sent  his  kite  to  meet 
it.  At  first  no  signs  of  electricity  were  apparent,  and  the 
disappointed  philosopher  had  all  but  abandoned  kite  and  ex- 
periment in  despair.  Casting  a  mortified  glance  on  his  appa- 
ratus, he  perceived  a  sudden  movement  in  the  loose  fibres 
of  the  hempen  string,  and  instantly  presented  his  knuckles  to 
the  key.  A  strong  electric  spark  was  the  result.  The  identity 
of  lightning  with  electricity  was  established.  To  the  world 
this  descent  of  information  from  the  clouds  gave  the  lightning- 
conductor  ;  to  Franklin  it  brought  celebrity  and  honors. 

In  1753  Franklin  was  appointed  deputy  postmaster-general  ot 
the  British  American  Colonies.  In  1754  he  was  one  of  the  dele- 
gates to  the  Albany  Congress,  and  it  was  Franklin  who  drew  up 
the  plan  of  union  for  defence  which  became  so  distasteful  to  the 
British  Cabinet  on  account  of  its  marking  out  a  colonial  policy 


40  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

distinct  from  the  narrow  views  of  the  ministry.  In  1757  his 
growing  reputation  advanced  Franklin  to  the  highly  honorable 
post  of  agent  in  England  for  four  of  the  provincial  govern- 
ments. In  an  independent  State  this  appointment  would  be 
equivalent  to  that  of  ambassador.  The  journeyman  printer 
now  found  himself  once  more  in  London,  but  as  the  associate 
of  the  learned,  the  powerful,  and  the  great.  He  was  elected  a 
member  of  the  Royal  Society,  and  he  received  the  degree  of 
LL.D.  from  the  universities  of  Edinburgh  and  Oxford.  He  was 
now  Dr.  Franklin.  In  1764  he  was  again  sent  to  London ; 
and  this  time  his  knowledge  of  affairs,  the  clearness  of  his 
views  upon  those  grave  public  questions  that  were  daily  widen- 
ing the  breach  between  the  two  countries,  gave  the  philosopher 
a  prominence  in  statesmanship  that  he  maintained  throughout 
the  stormy  period  now  approaching.  He  had  most  patriotically 
but  ineffectually  endeavored  to  avert  the  calamities  threatening 
both  England  and  America  with  a  rupture;  but  this  was  the 
period  of  infatuation,  and  so  Franklin's  counsel  and  Franklin's 
warning  were  of  little  avail.  We  may  say,  however,  that  no- 
where is  there  to  be  found  so  full  and  comprehensive  a  view  of 
the  colonies  at  that  time,  as  is  contained  in  the  minutes  of 
Franklin's  examination  with  reference  to  the  repeal  of  that 
egregious  piece  of  folly,  the  Stamp  Act.  During  this  residence 
abroad  Franklin  gained  enlarged  views  of  the  state  of  Europe 
by  travel  on  the  Continent.  There  soon  came  an  opportunity 
of  rendering  a  most  signal  service  to  his  country  by  expos- 
ing the  double-dealing  of  Governor  Hutchinson  of  Massachu- 
setts, who  in  his  letters  to  the  ministers  had  been  urging  them 
to  put  down  rebellion  with  the  strong  hand.  Some  of  these 
letters,  having  come  into  Franklin's  possession,  were  sent  to 
Massachusetts,  where  their  publication  created  intense  excite- 
ment and  indignation. 

The  time  for  peaceful  negotiation  having  passed,  Franklin  re- 
turned to  America  in  1775,  where  his  presence  was  needed. 
He  was  immediately  chosen  to  the  Continental  Congress,  taking 
thenceforward  an  active  part  in  its  deliberations  and  its  work 
of  meeting  the  crisis  with  vigor  and  effect.  He  favored  inde- 


BENJAMIN    FRANKLIN.  41 

pendence  of  Great  Britain ;  and  when  that  measure  was  being 
discussed,  he  is  said  to  have  put  the  matter  forcibly  before  the 
wavering  members  by  the  remark,  "  Come,  gentlemen,  if  we  do 
not  hang  together,  we  shall  hang  separately." 

But  Franklin's  greatest  political  services  were  performed  as  a 
negotiator  at  the  Court  of  Louis  XVI.  The  alliance  with  France 
was  owing  in  a  larger  measure,  doubtless,  to  Franklin's  tact, 
perseverance,  and  the  great  popularity  he  acquired,  both  with 
the  Court  and  people,  than  to  his  associates,  Messrs.  Lee  and 
Deane.  Franklin  had  the  proud  satisfaction  of  putting  his 
name  to  the  treaty  of  peace  which,  in  his  view,  was  the  only 
legitimate  result  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  He  then 
asked  for  his  recall. 

Full  of  years  and  honors,  Benjamin  Franklin  returned  to 
America  to  die.  What  he  accomplished  in  the  interests  of 
peaceful  progress  should  be  the  grateful  task  of  his  biog- 
rapher to  commemorate;  but  we  must  reluctantly  leave  these 
noble  or  charitable  deeds  of  his  with  the  remark  which  every 
American,  at  least,  will  appreciate :  "  If  you  would  see  his  mon- 
ument, look  around  you."  His  will  contained  noble  provision 
for  those  institutions  that  he  had  either  founded  or  derived 
benefit  from,  for  the  promotion  of  learning,  the  arts,  philan- 
thropy, and  for  the  public  good  in  general.  His  self-written 
epitaph  expresses  with  quaint  dignity  the  temper  in  which 
he  looked  on  death.  Frequently  as  the  words  have  been 
quoted,  no  sketch  of  Franklin  could  be  considered  satisfactory 
that  omitted  them. 

"  The  body  of  Benjamin  Franklin,  printer, 
Like  the  cover  of  an  old  book, 

Its  contents  torn  out, 
And  stript  of  its  lettering  and  gilding, 

Lies  here,  food  for  worms  ; 

Yet  the  work  itself  shall  not  be  lost, 

For  it  will  (as  he  believes)  appear  once  more 

In  a  new 

And  more  beautiful  edition, 
Corrected  and  amended 

By 
The  Author." 


42  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

A  fitting  hope  to  express  itself  on  the  tombstone  of  one  who, 
having  written,  "  The  most  acceptable  service  we  can  render 
to  God  is  to  do  good  to  his  other  children,"  spent  his  whole  life 
in  practising  the  benevolence  he  preached  !  We  shall  find  in 
the  character  of  Franklin  little  that  is  dazzling  or  magnifi- 
cent, nothing  resembling  the  fiery  combinations  of  vices  and 
virtues  that  from  time  to  time  blaze  across  the  world  like 
meteors.  His  career  shines  with  the  steady  light  of  a  star; 
and  that  splendor  is  ever  equable  and  serene. 


SIR   THOMAS    MORE. 

[BORN  1478.    BEHEADED  1535.] 

A  ROUND  the  reign  of  the  Eighth  Henry  there  hangs  a 
•*^-  double  darkness,  —  the  mist  of  centuries  and  the  mist  of 
blood ;  and  historical  attempts  to  pierce  that  twofold  veil  have 
proved  but  partially  effectual.  We  know  that  two  queens  died 
on  the  scaffold,  that  the  axe  took  away  the  life  of  noble  after 
noble,  that  seventy-two  thousand  victims  of  lesser  note  suffered 
death  at  the  hands  of  the  executioner ;  and  that  side  by  side  with 
all  this  tragic  work  went  on  the  business  and  the  merriment  of 
the  every-day  world.  Old  historians,  however,  and  the  manu- 
script records  through  which  patient  scholars  labor  with  untir- 
ing industry,  though  they  furnish  us  pictures  enough  of  the 
dark  drama  of  the  time,  teach  us  little  concerning  the  actors. 
Was  Anne  Boleyn  a  much-maligned  queen  or  a  wretched 
culprit?  Can  Cranmer  claim  to  be  venerated  as  a  martyr?  On 
these  and  a  hundred  other  questions  each  fresh  investigator 
pronounces  a  verdict  differing  from  that  of  his  predecessor, 
till  the  confusion  of  the  epoch  becomes  so  hopeless  that 
a  historian  arises  who  can  discern  all  the  virtues  that  ever 
adorned  a  monarch  in  the  English  Nero  himself.  There  is 
one  name  of  the  period,  however,  to  the  nobleness  of  which 


SIR    THOMAS     MOORE. 


SIR   THOMAS    MORE.  45 

those  who  consider  Henry  VIII.  a  hero,  and  those  who  per- 
ceive in  him  a  worthless  scrap  of  human  refuse  lifted  aloft  on 
the  tide  of  the  Reformation,  alike  bear  testimony.  No  stain 
of  reproach  has  ever  been  cast  upon  the  memory  of  Sir  Thomas 
More. 

Born  of  parents  who  could  claim  for  themselves  and  their 
ancestors  but  the  middle  rank  in  life,  More  early  gave  token 
of  the  qualities  by  which  greatness  is  achieved.  It  was  cus- 
tomary, while  the  Church  of  Rome  still  held  sway  in  England, 
for  ecclesiastics  of  high  rank  to  receive  into  their  houses  boys 
of  good  name  and  character,  nominally  as  pages,  but  in  reality 
to  receive  instruction  in  the  learning  of  the  time.  Placed  on 
such  a  footing  in  the  household  of  Cardinal  Morton,  young 
Thomas  quickly  attracted  the  attention  and  won  the  regard  of 
his  patron  ;  and  with  a  prophecy  that  so  extraordinarily  gifted 
a  lad  would  climb  high  in  Church  or  State,  the  generous  eccle- 
siastic despatched  him  to  study  at  Oxford. 

For  a  time  Fortune  seemed  to  have  laid  aside  her  proverbial 
fickleness,  that  she  might  be  constant  to  Thomas  More.  He 
adopted  the  law  as  his  profession,  rapidly  acquired  renown,  and 
while  still  a  young  man  was  returned  to  Parliament.  Strong 
religious  sentiments  at  this  period  held  possession  of  his  mind. 
He  lectured  on  the  work  of  St.  Augustine,  "  De  Civitate  Dei ;  " 
passed  much  of  his  time  in  devotion ;  and  had  thoughts  of 
retiring  from  the  world.  A  pair  of  bright  eyes  fortunately  in- 
terrupted the  current  of  his  meditations;  and  More,  happy  in 
his  wedded  life,  gave  to  mankind  the  mind  that  he  had  all  but 
resolved  should  narrow  itself  to  the  captivity  of  a  monastery. 

The  publication  of  his  great  work,  "  Utopia,"  placed  him  high 
among  the  men  of  letters  of  the  age,  and  far  in  advance  of  that 
age  as  a  philosopher  and  reformer.  It  seems  strange  that  a  work 
so  liberal  in  its  tenor  should  have  escaped  the  censure  of  the 
Government,  stranger  still  that  the  quiet  but  persistent  opposi- 
tion of  More  to  the  despotic  demands  of  King  and  Court 
should  have  failed  to  draw  down  on  him  the  anger  of  the  pas- 
sionate Henry.  Far,  however,  from  paling,  his  star  continued 
year  by  year  to  beam  more  brightly.  In  1529  came  the  fall  of 


46  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Wolsey.  Eight  days  after  the  Great  Seal  of  England  had  been 
taken  from  the  unhappy  Cardinal,  King  Henry  delivered  it  to 
Sir  Thomas  More. 

The  years  of  his  chancellorship  shine  out  with  noonday 
brightness  from  the  judicial  darkness  of  the  Tudor  period. 
After  ages  of  corruption,  England  at  length  had  for  her  chief 
judge  a  man  who  loathed  the  infamous  practices  by  which  his 
predecessors  had  grown  rich.  The  hands  of  More  were  clean 
from  bribes.  Such  praise  would  in  our  own  time  sound  su- 
perfluous, if  not  insulting.  Applied  to  a  chancellor  of  the 
sixteenth  century  it  became  the  token  of  an  integrity  at  the 
spotlessness  of  which  men  stood  amazed.  Bacon  himself, 
the  greatest  Englishman  that  ever  sat  on  the  woolsack,  could 
not  claim  it. 

Erasmus,  the  life-long  friend  of  Sir  Thomas,  has  left  us  a 
delightful  picture  of  the  domestic  happiness  enjoyed  by  the 
great  Chancellor.  Fortunate  in  a  second  marriage  as  in  the 
first,  surrounded  by  attached  and  dutiful  children,  More  passed 
year  after  year  in  an  atmosphere  of  peace,  lighted  by  the 
cheerful  brightness  of  his  lambent  humor.  The  greatness  of 
his  spirit  appeared  in  his  every  action.  The  constant  study  of 
his  life  was  how  to  temper  law  with  equity,  to  deal  forth  equal 
justice  to  rich  and  poor,  to  prevent  needless  litigation,  to  drive 
cruelty  and  dishonesty  from  the  judgment-seat.  In  his  integrity, 
however,  there  was  no  taint  %of  harshness.  Even  bribes  were 
put  from  him  less  with  a  rebuke  than  a  jest  A  rich  widow 
once  brought  to  him  at  the  New  Year  a  pair  of  gloves  stuffed 
with  gold  angels.  More  emptied  the  money  into  her  lap.  "  It 
is  against  good  manners,"  he  said,  "  to  refuse  a  gentlewoman's 
New  Year  gift.  I  will  therefore  take  the  gloves,  but  thou 
mayest  keep  the  lining." 

To  the  country  house  of  Sir  Thomas  at  Chelsea  came  many 
times  the  King  himself.  Chelsea  was  then  a  quiet  village,  with 
green  fields  sloping  down  towards  the  pure  and  sparkling  waters 
of  the  Thames.  Henry  shared  the  dinner  of  his  Chancellor, 
laughed  without  measure  at  his  jests,  and  walked  and  talked 
with  him  in  his  quaint,  spacious,  trimly  kept  garden.  Once 


SIR  THOMAS   MORE.  47 

the  son-in-law  of  Sir  Thomas  watched  the  King  strolling  for 
an  hour  over  lawn  and  path,  his  arm  the  while  round  the  Chan- 
cellor's neck.  Some  sunbeam  striking  down  on  one  of  the  dials 
then  common  in  English  gardens  may  have  brightened  into 
prominence  the  "  Memento  mori "  gilded  there ;  but  the  warn- 
ing, though  it  impressed  itself  on  the  heart  of'  More,  escaped 
his  son-in-law.  The  King  departed  ;  and,  the  Chancellor  being 
again  alone,  his  eager  relative  ran  to  congratulate  him.  "  Never 
saw  I  our  Lord  the  King  do  so  to  any  before,"  he  declared, 
"  save  once  to  the  Cardinal,  with  whom  his  Grace  walked  arm 
in  arm."  Sir  Thomas  had  a  clearer  brain,  and  a  spirit  pure 
from  all  taint  of  vanity.  "  I  thank  our  Lord,"  he  replied,  "  I  find 
his  Grace  my  very  good  lord  indeed,  and  I  believe  he  doth  as 
singularly  favor  me  as  any  subject  within  his  realm.  Howbeit, 
son  Roper,  I  may  tell  thee  I  have  no  cause  to  be  proud  thereof; 
for  if  my  head  would  win  a  castle  in  France  it  should  not  fail 
to  go." 

The  stormy  epoch  of  the  English  Reformation  dawned. 
Catherine  was  divorced,  and  the  diadem  of  queen  consort 
passed  to  the  forehead  of  Anne  Boleyn.  Unable  to  recognize 
her  as  queen,  More  resigned  the  chancellorship  and  retired 
into  private  life.  The  anger  of  the  King  pursued  him.  Sum- 
moned to  admit  the  lawfulness  of  the  divorce  of  Catherine,  he 
refused.  The  Tower  gates  quickly  closed  on  him,  and  his 
property  was  declared  forfeited  to  the  Crown.  A  year  of  cap- 
tivity followed.  The  oath  of  supremacy  had  by  this  time  been 
devised,  and  after  some  debate  was  formally  tendered  to  Sir 
Thomas.  A  fervent  and  pious  Catholic,  he  refused  to  acknowl- 
edge Henry  as  the  Supreme  Head  of  the  Chuch;  and  the  1st 
of  July,  1535,  beheld  him  condemned  to  suffer  as  a  traitor. 

He  was  brought  back  to  the  Tower  by  the  river,  that  ma- 
jestic and  placid  water-way  along  which  he  must  many  times 
have  passed  to  the  beloved  home  at  Chelsea  whither  he  was 
never  to  return.  At  the  Tower  wharf  his  "  best-beloved 
daughter,  Margaret,"  was  waiting  to  receive  the  farewell  bless- 
ing of  the  father  whose  affection  for  her  had  been  so  tender. 
She  broke  through  the  guard  that  encompassed  him;  and, 


48  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

flinging  herself  upon  his  neck,  was  but  able,  between  tears  and 
kisses,  to  exclaim  bitterly,  "  Oh,  my  father !  Oh,  my  father !  " 
More  soothed  her  with  the  hope  of  meeting  hereafter;  and, 
bidding  her  be  patient  for  his  loss,  blessed  her  most  tenderly 
and  departed  slowly  from  her  sight. 

From  the  sight  of  history  he  can  never  depart.  His  death, 
as  noble  and  courageous  as  his  life,  closed  with  solemn  and 
appropriate  dignity  the  story  of  a  career  in  which  from  youth 
till  age  the  fear  of  God  had  been  displayed  together  with  the 
love  of  man.  Never  did  Christian  pass  with  calmer  heroism  to 
his  reward.  "O  death,  where  is  thy  sting?"  was  the  trium- 
phant question  that  spoke  in  every  detail  of  the  martyrdom  of 
Sir  Thomas  More. 


SIR   PHILIP   SIDNEY. 

[BORN  1554.    DIED  1586.] 

like  other  natural  forces,  obeys  a  very  common 
law  of  recurrence.  Like  the  storm-wind,  which  in  its  wil- 
fulness  it  seems  to  imitate,  it  moves  in  cycles.  After  a  certain 
number  of  years  it  sweeps  throughout  the  length  and  breadth 
of  a  land,  and  vibrates  the  chords  of  men's  hearts  with  a  won- 
drous similarity  of  power.  The  epochs  of  genius  have  been 
frequently  observed,  and  are  termed  in  history  the  ages  of  cer- 
tain princes  or  pioneers  of  culture.  Thus  we  have  the  age  of 
Pericles  in  Greece,  the  Augustan  and  the  age  of  Leo  X.  in  Italy, 
those  of  Francis  I.  and  Louis  Quatorze  in  France.  Sir  Philip 
Sidney  was  born  at  Penshurst  in  Kent  on  the  2Oth  of  November, 
1554,  in  a  period  crowded  with  the  most  brilliant  scholars, 
heroes,  and  poets  this  country  has  ever  seen.  It  was  the  age 
of  Spenser  and  Hooker,  of  Bacon,  Raleigh,  Buckhurst,  Chap- 
man, and  Buchanan,  of  Drayton,  Jonson,  and  Shakspeare.  To 
pass  beyond  the  narrow  limits  of  Britain,  it  was  a  time  when 


SIR    PHILIP    SIDNEY. 


SIR  PHILIP   SIDNEY.  SI 

Spain  had  her  Cervantes,  Portugal  her  Camoens,  and  Italy  her 
Tasso.  Not  that  these  illustrious  writers  formed  or  even  con- 
tributed to  Sidney's  character,  for  he  was  among  the  earliest  of 
them.  When  he  first  saw  the  light  Raleigh  was  a  child  of  two 
years,  Spenser  an  infant  of  twelve  months,  Bacon  and  Shak- 
speare  were  yet  unborn.  Having  acquired  the  rudiments  of 
knowledge  at  Shrewsbury  School  in  1569,  he  went  first  to 
Oxford  and  then  to  Cambridge,  following  not  merely  the 
beaten  tracks  of  literature  and  science,  but  exploring  their 
innermost  recesses  with  a  vehemence  as  great  as  it  was  un- 
common. The  vastness  of  his  appetite  for  learning  was  only 
surpassed  by  his  powers  of  assimilation  and  appropriation.  On 
leaving  the  university,  as  was  usual  with  young  men  of  his  rank 
and  means,  he  went  abroad.  In  Paris  he  was  startled  by  the 
terrific  night  of  St.  Bartholomew,  and  only  escaped  destruc- 
tion through  taking  refuge  in  the  house  of  Sir  Francis  Wal- 
singham,  the  English  ambassador.  He  stayed,  nevertheless, 
long  enough  in  Paris  to  make  the  acquaintance  and  gain  the 
respect  of  the  learned  printers,  Robert  and  H£nry  Stephens, 
and  to  commence  a  correspondence  with  Languet,  who  re- 
garded him  with  a  fatherly  tenderness,  and  gave  him  the  most 
excellent  advice,  contributing  very  considerably  to  the  for- 
mation of  that  bright  and  honorable  character  for  which  he 
became  even  at  that  early  age  celebrated  throughout  Europe. 

From  Paris  Sidney  passed  on  to  Strasburg  and  Frankfort; 
and  here  he  met  in  person  with  the  venerable  jurisconsult,  who 
was  then  on  a  secret  embassy  from  the  Elector  of  Saxony. 
He  is  thus  referred  to  in  the  "  Arcadia :  "  — 

"  The  song  I  sang  old  Languet  had  me  taught, 
Languet,  the  shepherd  best  swift  Istu  knew, 
For  clerkly  reed  and  hating  what  is  naught, 
For  faithful  heart,  clean  hands,  and  mouth  as  true." 

In  May,  1575,  after  a  three  years'  absence,  he  returned  to 
England,  where  his  varied  learning,  his  gentle  and  refined 
manners,  and  his  polished  and  powerful  intellect  made  him  at 
once  the  admiration  and  ornament  of  the  Court  of  Elizabeth.  In 


52  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

1576  the  Queen  sent  him  on  an  embassy  ostensibly  to  condole 
with  the  Emperor  Rudolph  on  the  death  of  his  father,  Maximil- 
ian II.,  but  in  reality  to  feel  the  pulse  of  Protestantism  in  the 
empire,  with  regard  to  a  combination  of  the  Protestant  States 
against  the  Catholic  power.  A  similar  mission  to  John  Casimir, 
Count  Palatine,  was  equally  successful.  During  his  stay  in 
Holland  he  had  formed  a  sincere  and  enduring  friendship  with 
its  illustrious  Stadtholder,  William  of  Orange.  Notwithstanding 
disparity  of  rank,  the  Prince  always  generously  insisted  upon 
treating  Sidney  as  his  equal  and  placing  him  among  the  most 
intimate  of  his  personal  friends.  Again  returning  to  London, 
he  enjoyed  the  particular  notice  and  special  admiration  of  the 
Queen,  who  exercised  towards  him  a  sort  of  motherly  solicitude. 
He  very  nearly  risked  her  displeasure  over  the  proposed 
marriage  with  the  Duke  of  Anjou,  of  which  he  was  too  patri- 
otic and  truly  honest  to  approve,  by  writing  a  long  letter  to  the 
Queen,  in  which  he  urged  many  excellent  reasons  against  the 
match,  and  in  fact  succeeded  in  setting  her  mind  against  it. 
Becoming  involved  in  a  quarrel  with  the  Earl  of  Oxford,  he 
retired  from  Court  and  took  up  a  temporary  residence  at  Wilton, 
the  seat  of  his  brother-in-law,  the  Earl  of  Pembroke.  Here,  to 
beguile  his  time,  he  composed  his  great  work,  the  "  Arcadia." 
It  is  a  curious  allegorical  romance,  written  simply  to  amuse  his 
sister,  the  'sister  on  whom  Ben  Jonson  afterwards  wrote  that 
most  polished  of  epitaphs  :  — 

"  Underneath  this  marble  hearse 
Lies  the  subject  of  all  verse, 
Sidney's  sister,  Pembroke's  mother. 
Death,  ere  thou  hast  slain  another         . 
Wise  and  good  and  learned  as  she, 
Time  shall  cast  his  dart  at  thee." 

The  verses  stand  beneath  her  portrait  at  South  Kensington, 
and  recall  to  the  spectator  the  tender  sisterly  love  which  years 
after  the  young  poet-hero's  death  collected  the  cherished 
sheets  of  manuscript,  sent  to  her  one  by  one  as  they  had  been 
written,  and  carefully  had  them  printed  in  his  honor.  Perhaps, 


SIR   PHILIP   SIDNEY.  53 

considering  the  nature  of  the  composition,  its  greatest  praise  is 
that  it  is  not  absurd.  Neither  is  it  stilted  like  Harrington's 
"  Oceana,"  nor  long-winded  and  wordy  like  Barclay's  "  Argenis." 
As  Sidney  formed  his  style  upon  the  Italian  writers,  he  is  not 
always  able  to  avoid  the  blemishes  which  occasionally  mar 
even  the  delicious  music  of  the  "  Orlando."  There  is  a  ten- 
dency to  conceit  in  phraseology,  though  it  is  modified  no  doubt 
by  the  chastening  pen  of  the  refined  and  scholarly  woman  who 
undertook  the  task  of  its  revision. 

;  As  he  was  probably  not  more  than  twenty-five  at  the  time  of 
its  being  handed  piecemeal  to  the  Countess  of  Pembroke,  it  is 
scarcely  fair  to  subject  it  to  a  very  severe  criticism.  We  must 
remember  that  he  wrote  not  so  much  as  a  practised  author,  but 
as  a  soldierly  courtier  for  amusement.  The  plot  of  the  "  Arca- 
dia "  is  skilful,  but  the  story  is  in  many  parts  extremely  im- 
probable, while  the  form  of  a  Spenserean  sort  of  romance  in 
prose  cannot  but  be  more  or  less  tedious  and  wearisome.  Still, 
like  the  "  Faerie  Queen,"  it  abounds  with  brilliant  passages.  In 
description  of  natural  beauty  Sidney  is  the  equal  of  any  of 
his  contemporaries ;.  in  intellectual  polish  he  surpasses  many. 
It  is  true  that  that  most  exquisite  of  perfumed  critics  and  most 
fastidious  of  dilettanti,  Horace  Walpole,  speaks  of  it  as  a 
lamentable  pedantic  pastoral  romance ;  but  it  has  nevertheless 
received  for  its  wit  the  praise  of  John  Milton  and  the  deliberate 
commendation  of  Sir  William  Temple. 

As  for  the  lesser  work,  the  "  Defence  of  Poesy,"  it  is  only  the 
fact  of  its  being  overshadowed  by  the  superior  fame,  or  rather 
magnitude,  of  the  "  Arcadia  "  that  prevents  its  being  known  as 
one  of  the  most  perfect  of  literary  productions.  But  apart  from 
his  fame  as  a  writer,  the  chief  element  of  which,  after  all,  prob- 
ably arises  from  his  brilliant  character  as  a  diplomatist  and  a 
soldier,  he  was  a  man  so  perfect  that  it  is  hard  to  select  a 
quality  which  can  be  spoken  of  as  pre-eminent.  He  was  even 
in  his  own  day  the  pattern  to  which  younger  men  were  directed 
to  look.  Happening  to  live  at  a  period  when  the  opinions  of 
the  age  were  just  on  the  point  of  a  radical  change,  he  has  a  sin- 
gular felicity  in  touching  the  characteristics  of  the  two  periods 


54  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

in  his  own  character.  Courage,  courtesy,  grace,  humanity,  and 
unsullied  honor  mark  him  as  the  preux  chevalier  of  the  period 
ridiculed  in  the  immortal  parody  of  Cervantes,  while  the  love 
of  literature,  the  cultivated  scholarship,  the  statesmanship,  pa- 
triotism, and  sincere  religious  belief  place  him  among  the 
foremost  spirits  of  the  Reformation.  Camden  says  of  him  that 
"  he  is  his  own  monument  who  .  .  .  was  born  into  the  world  to 
show  unto  our  age  a  sample  of  ancient  virtues."  As  a  proof 
of  the  estimation  in  which  he  was  held  throughout  the  Conti- 
nent, he  was  personally  solicited  by  a  candidate  for  the  Crown 
of  Portugal  to  render  assistance,  and  would  have  consented  had 
he  not  been  forbidden  by  the  Queen  herself. 

In  1583  he  married  the  daughter  of  his  old  friend  and  patron, 
Sir  Francis  Walsingham,  and  soon  afterwards  was  urged  by 
several  foreigners  of  high  rank  to  become  a  candidate  for  the 
Crown  of  Poland.  He  would  probably  have  been  elected ;  but 
the  Queen  again  interfered.  She  could  not  afford  to  lose  the 
brightest  ornament  of  her  Court;  and  Poland  had  to  struggle  on 
until  she  perished  beneath  the  selfishness  of  her  latest  mon- 
arch and  the  rapacity  of  her  more  powerful,  neighbors. 

In  1585  the  revolt  of  the  Netherlands  against  the  oppression 
of  Spain  and  the  cruelties  of  the  Duke  of  Alva  brought  Sir 
Philip  once  more  to  the  front  as  a  soldier.  Elizabeth  had  been 
urged  by  the  unhappy  Hollanders  to  render  them  her  powerful 
assistance.  In  return  for  her  help  they  made  over  to  her  cer- 
tain of  their  towns,  the  principal  of  which  was  Flushing.  Of 
this  town  Sidney  was  appointed  governor,  —  an  appointment 
which  he  accepted  with  the  utmost  eagerness.  Once  on  the 
spot,  though  he  had  to  contend  with  many  grave  difficulties, 
not  the  least  among  which  were  the  incompetence  and  misman- 
agement of  his  uncle,  the  Earl  of  Leicester,  whom  the  Queen 
had  made  Captain-General  of  the  Low  Countries,  he  yet  suc- 
ceeded in  rendering  important  help  to  the  great  cause  to  which 
he  had  devoted  his  energies.  His  brief  career  was  only  long 
enough  to  prove  how  invaluable  might  have  been  the  services 
which  were  lost  by  his  untimely  death.  At  the  severely  con- 
tested fight  near  Zutphen,  while  behaving  with  a  coolness  and 


SIR  PHILIP   SIDNEY.  55 

courage  that  rendered  his  name  a  byword  for  heroic  deeds, 
he  was  struck  with  a  musket  shot  in  the  left  thigh,  and  to  his 
own  bitter  disappointment  utterly  disabled.  Leaning  over  his 
horse's  shoulder  and  riding  slowly  from  the  field,  he  was  almost 
dead  with  that  fearful  thirst  which  seizes  the  wounded  in  battle. 
But  even  here  he  was  fated  to  be  the  victim  of  self-denial ;  for, 
seeing,  as  he  placed  the  water  to  his  lips,  that  the  precious 
draught  was  envied  by  the  longing  eyes  of  a  wounded  and 
speechless  soldier,  he  passed  it  to  the  poor  fellow,  and  himself 
rode  on  to  his  death-bed.  In  great  agony  he  lingered  on  for 
sixteen  weary  days,  and  expired  on  the  igth  of  October,  1586, 
at  the  early  age  of  thirty-two.  In  his  death  he  displayed  the 
same  great  qualities  which  had  ennobled  his  young  but  manly 
life,  —  courage  as  became  a  soldier,  calmness  as  of  one  whose 
conscience  was  without  reproach,  and  resignation  as  of  a  devout 
believer  in  the  Christianity  which  he  had  professed  and  of 
which  his  spotless  life  had  been  so  excellent  an  example.  The 
sorrow  for  his  death  was  universal.  Not  only  in  England  but 
throughout  Europe  his  loss  was  mourned  as  a  grievous  calamity. 
Even  his  enemies  admired  him  and  wept  over  his  untimely 
fate.  For  months  afterwards  in  England  no  gentleman  ap- 
peared at  Court  or  in  the  city  out  of  mourning.  The  universities 
composed  elegies  in  his  honor.  Even  the  Scottish  King, 
James,  did  not  think  it  beneath  his  royal  dignity  to  write  the 
epitaph  of  the  soldier-poet.  And  Queen  Elizabeth  denied  the 
earnest  petition  of  the  States  of  Holland  for  the  honor  of  his 
burial,  that  she  might  herself  render  his  memory  all  possible 
honor  in  a  sumptuous  funeral  and  a  monument  in  old  St. 
Paul's. 


56  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 


JOHN    HAMPDEN. 

[BORN  1594.    DIED  JUNE  24,  1643.] 

IN  the  year  1637  the  complaints  of  the  English  people  against 
Charles  I.  were  such  as  for  number  and  justness  had  been 
matched  in  few  reigns  since  the  Conquest.  Prynne  and  other 
martyrs  in  the  cause  of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  who  com- 
mand our  esteem  and  admiration  even  when  the  austerity  of 
their  Puritanism  most  repels  us,  had  recently  endured  mutila- 
tion and  imprisonment,  and,  with  ears  and  noses  lopped  off  by 
the  knife  of  the  hangman,  now  brooded  in  obscure  dungeons 
over  their  country's  wrongs  and  their  own.  Two  hateful  in- 
quisitions, the  Star  Chamber  and  the  Court  of  High  Commis- 
sion, tyrannized,  the  one  over  things  secular,  the  other  in 
questions  of  ecclesiastical  import.  The  Church  was  servile, 
the  judges  were  the  venal  tools  of  the  King,  removable  from 
office  at  the  royal  pleasure,  and  well  aware  that  in  suits  to 
which  the  Crown  was  a  party  a  decision  displeasing  to  the 
sovereign  or  his  ministers  would  result  in  the  loss  of  place  and 
pay.  Eight  years  had  elapsed  since  the  last  meeting  of  a 
Parliament ;  and  the  boldest  patriot  of  the  assembly  dissolved 
in  1629,  the  famous  Sir  John  Eliot,  had  recently  expired  in 
the  Tower,  martyred  by  an  imprisonment  inflicted  in  tyran- 
nous defiance  of  law.  The  machinery  of  despotism  was  in 
thorough  working  order ;  the  property,  liberty,  and  in  extreme 
cases  the  persons,  of  Englishmen  who  dared  avow  a  belief 
that  freedom  was  more  divine  than  kinghood,  had  no  further 
security  than  the  forbearance  of  the  sovereign.  But  Charles 
had  as  little  mercy  as  faith ;  and  had  he  even  been  disposed  to 
lenity,  there  were  at  his  elbow  two  counsellors  still  more  faith- 
less and  merciless  than  himself,  —  Laud  and  the  implacable 
Strafford. 


JOHN     HAMPDEN. 


JOHN    HAMPDEN.  59 

John  Hampden,  one  of  the  wealthiest  and  most  respected 
of  English  commoners,  and  perhaps  the  most  illustrious  of 
English  patriots,  was  born  in  1594.  His  father,  a  Buckingham- 
shire gentleman,  was  a  member  of  Parliament,  sitting  as  repre- 
sentative for  East  Looe  in  1593.  His  mother  was  the  second 
daughter  of  Sir  Henry  Cromwell,  of  Hinchinbroke.  At  fifteen 
years  of  age  he  was  entered  as  a  commoner  at  Magdalen 
College,  Oxford.  Four  years  afterwards  he  was  admitted  to 
the  Inner  Temple.  In  1619,  when  in  his  twenty-sixth  year, 
he  married  Elizabeth,  only  daughter  of  Edmund  Symeon,  of 
Pyrton,  Oxfordshire,  and  on  the  3Oth  of  January  in  the  year 
following  he  took  his  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons.  The 
borough  of  Grampound,  then  a  place  of  some  importance,  had 
the  honor  of  first  sending  him  to  Parliament.  In  the  first 
Parliament  called  by  Charles  he  was  returned  for  Wendover, 
and  in  the  second  he  was  again  returned  for  the  same  borough. 
During  the  important  session  which  opened  in  March,  1627, 
he  was  already  a  marked  character,  and  became  a  member  of 
important  committees  formed  by  St.  John,  Coke,  Selden,  and 
Pym.  For  more  than  a  year  he  had  ranked  as  the  leading 
opponent  of  the  Court.  After  the  dissolution  of  the  Parlia- 
ment of  1629,  the  King  and  his  advisers  could  obtain  money 
only  by  resorting  to  expedients  .that  we're  so  many  outrages 
upon  the  liberty  of  the  subject  and  the  constitution  of  the 
realm.  The  most  shameless  of  these  illegal  devices  has  be- 
come historically  famous  under  the  name  of  ship  money.  In 
1588,  when  the  whole  naval  might  of  Spain  was  bearing  down 
upon  our  coasts,  and  Drake,  Raleigh,  Frobisher,  and  other 
English  sea  lions  were  stoutly  preparing  themselves  for  a  day 
of  battle,  Elizabeth  had  demanded  from  the  maritime  counties 
a  supply  of  ships  and  men.  Half  a  century  later,  at  a  season 
when  no  such  danger  menaced  the  State,  Charles  not  only 
renewed  but  heightened  the  demand,  extending  it  to  the  inland 
counties,  and  asking  money  in  lieu  of  ships,  the  term  "  ship 
money"  being  a  name  and  very  little  more,  and  the  whole 
scheme  a  despotic  expedient  for  putting  a  few  hundred  thou- 
sand pounds  into  an  empty  exchequer.  There  were  thousands 


60  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

who  endured  in  sullen  silence  this  new  drain  upon  their  purses 
and  their  patience ;  there  was  but  one  man  who  had  wisdom 
and  courage  enough  to  refuse  payment  of  the  sum  at  which 
he  was  assessed.  Hampden,  one  of  the  most  discerning  as 
he  was  one  of  the  most  patriotic  of  Englishmen,  perceived 
that  never  could  subject  combat  with  more  justice  or  for  bet- 
ter reasons  the  authority  of  the  Crown.  By  agreeing  to  the 
Petition  of  Right,  Charles  had  solemnly  pledged  himself  not  to 
raise  even  legal  taxes  without  the  consent  of  Parliament.  He 
now  sought,  in  defiance  of  his  oath,  unlawfully  to  exact  from 
the  country  a  tax  that  was  in  itself  unlawful.  Would  the 
judges,  slavish  as  they  were,  dare  to  declare  such  an  abuse  of 
the  kingly  authority  the  legal  prerogative  of  a  constitutional 
monarch?  If  they  should,  was  the  spirit  of  England  so  tamed 
that  she  would  look  on  unresistingly  while,  at  the  bidding  of  a 
tyrant,  men  appointed  to  expound  and  defend  her  laws  tram- 
pled them  underfoot? 

The  result  of  the  memorable  trial  that  ensued  is  familiar  to 
even  the  most  superficial  student  of  English  history.  Seven  of 
the  twelve  judges  who  tried  the  suit  rated  their  places  at  a 
higher  value  than  their  consciences,  and  gave  judgment  for 
the  King.  The  remaining  five,  although  afraid  that  dismissal 
would  punish  their  unwonted  uprightness,  could  not  avoid  de- 
claring that  the  law  was  wholly  in  favor  of  Hampden.  The 
nominal  victory  was  with  the  Crown  ;  the  real  triumph  belonged, 
by  the  confession  of  Clarendon,  to  him  whom  the  great  histo- 
rian terms  "  the  gentleman  condemned."  The  talents,  force 
of  character,  and  ardent  though  calm  attachment  to  liberty  that 
had  distinguished  Hampden  from  the  day  when,  in  1620,  he 
entered  upon  his  public  career,  had  long  before  marked  him 
out  as  one  of  the  foremost  commoners  of  England.  He  now 
secured  by  his  bold  and  timely  defence  of  the  national  liberties 
the  leadership  of  the  party  that  was  banding  itself  together 
against  the  Court,  and  enjoyed  until  the  day  of  his  death  a 
political  supremacy  disputed  by  none  but  Pym. 

The  immediate  effects  of  his  patriotism  were,  however,  to 
put  his  liberty,  and  even  his  life,  in  danger.  The  year  was 


JOHN    HAMPDEN.  6l 

1637;  the  condition  of  England  such  as  we  have  endeavored  to 
indicate.  Hopeless  of  any  present  reform,  and  well  aware  of 
what  was  likely  to  befall  him  at  the  hands  of  Strafford  and 
Laud,  Hampden  determined  to  seek  beyond  the  Atlantic  the 
freedom  that  neither  for  himself  nor  for  others  could  he  gain 
at  home.  In  the  wilderness  of  Connecticut  a  few  of  the  perse- 
cuted Puritans  were  already  gathered  together,  slowly  shaping 
out  for  themselves  a  settlement  in  the  woods,  and  finding  cold, 
unremitting  toil,  the  danger  of  starvation,  the  neighborhood  of 
stealthy  and  ferocious  beasts  of  prey  and  of  the  yet  more  cun- 
ning and  ferocious  Indian,  more  tolerable  than  the  tyranny  of 
kings.  These  he  resolved  to  join.  His  cousin,  Oliver  Crom- 
well, shared  his  sentiments  and  his  purpose;  and  the  two  were 
already  on  board  the  vessel  that  was  to  convey  them  into 
their  self-sought  exile,  when  an  order  of  council  prevented  it 
from  sailing  and  forced  the  intended  emigrants  ashore.  They 
landed,  the  one  to  die  in  a  few  years  a  glorious  death,  the 
other  to  become  the  most  gigantic  .figure  in  the  history  of  the 
time. 

In  November,  1640,  the  Long  Parliament  met.  Hampden  at 
once  took  the  lead  in  the  debates  of  that  stirring  time.  "  The 
eyes  of  all  men,"  writes  his  political  adversary,  Lord  Claren- 
don, "were  fixed  upon  him  as  their  patriot  pater,  and  the  pilot 
that  must  steer  the  vessel  through  the  tempests  and  rocks  which 
threatened  it.  ...  His  reputation  of  honesty  was  universal, 
and  his  affections  seemed  so  publicly  guided  that  no  corrupt 
or  private  ends  could  bias  them.  .  .  .  He  was  indeed  a  very 
wise  man,  and  of  great  parts,  and  possessed  with  the  most 
absolute  spirit  of  popularity,  and  the  most  absolute  faculties 
to  govern  the  people,  of  any  man  I  ever  knew." 

Whether,  had  he  escaped  from  the  skirmish  of  Chalgrove 
Field,  Hampden  would  in  very  deed  have  come  to  govern  the 
people  of  England  is  problematical ;  but  it  is  almost  certain 
that  a  very  short  prolongation  of  his  life  would  have  seen  him 
general-in-chief  of  the  armies  of  the  Parliament.  On  the  first 
lighting  of  the  flames  of  civil  war  he  was  content,  probably 
from  his  lack  of  military  knowledge,  with  the  commission  of  a 


62  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

simple  colonel  and  permission  to  raise  and  equip  a  regiment  of 
infantry.  The  vigor  and  ability  he  displayed  in  this  subordi- 
nate capacity  were  set  off  to  the  best  advantage  by  the  faults  of 
his  nominal  superiors.  Already  voices  were  clamoring  loudly 
for  his  appointment  as  commander-in-chief  in  the  place  of  the 
irresolute  Essex,  when,  on  June  18,  1643,  Hampden,  at  the 
head  of  a  few  squadrons  of  dragoons  whom  he  had  hastily  got 
together,  cut  off  the  retreat  of  Prince  Rupert,  as  that  impetu- 
ous leader  was  returning  laden  with  plunder  from  a  marauding 
expedition  on  which  he  had  ventured  forth  from  Oxford.  The 
skirmish  that  followed  was  hard  fought,  but  brief.  Two  bullets 
were  lodged  in  the  body  of  Hampden ;  and  as  their  mortally 
wounded  leader  drooped  forward  in  his  saddle,  the  cavalry  of 
the  Parliament  turned  and  fled.  While  the  elated  Royalists, 
after  sabreing  a  few  of  the  fugitives,  pursued  their  way  to  Ox- 
ford, Hampden,  turning  his  horse's  head  from  the  lost  field  of 
Chalgrove,  rode  slowly  to  Thame  to  die. 

The  story  of  his  last  hours  has  been  told  by  one  of  the  greatest 
masters  of  English  prose.  While  the  broken  prayer,  "  O  Lord, 
save  my  country  —  O  Lord,  be  merciful  to  —  "  was  on  the  lips 
of  the  suffering  Hampden,  Death  touched  them ;  and  there 
passed  away  one  of  the  most  stainless  and  unselfish  spirits  that 
in  any  age  of  the  world  have  been  made  martyrs  to  the  cause 
of  liberty.  Alone  among  the  heroes  of  his  generation,  Hamp- 
den claims  the  praise  that  in  all  things  he  labored  for  his  coun- 
try, and  in  nothing  for  himself.  Other  figures  loom  forth  with 
a  sterner  grandeur  from  amidst  the  conflicts  of  the  epoch ;  but 
on  none  has  history  conferred  an  immortality  equally  enviable 
with  that  of  the  patriot  who  first  roused  Englishmen  to  a  strug- 
gle for  liberty,  but  who  would  have  been  the  last  to  consent 
that  the  altar  of  freedom  when  triumphantly  erected  should  be 
stained  with  the  life-blood  of  a  king. 


LORD    WILLIAM    RUSSELL. 


LORD   WILLIAM   RUSSELL.  65 


LORD    WILLIAM    RUSSELL. 

[BORN  1641.    DIED  1683.] 

TT  is  too  much  the  fashion  to  endeavor  to  trace  the  descent  of 
-1-  every  hero  from  some  noble  ancestry.  Writers  would  seem 
to  forget  that  no  estate  has  the  monopoly  of  heroes.  The 
annals  of  that  country  prove  at  a  mere  cursory  glance,  and 
most  convincingly,  that  the  liberty  and  power  of  England  is 
being  built  up  and  consolidated  by  genius  and  heroism  from 
every  rank.  The  subject  of  our  present  memoir,  however, 
is  a  hero  whose  noble  descent  cannot  be  controverted,  but 
whose  position  was,  nevertheless,  no  safeguard  against  injus- 
tice, and  whose  tragic  fate,  as  in  numerous  other  instances  in 
history,  was  due  to  those  political  excesses  to  which  faction 
and  partisanship  can  run  ere  law  and  justice  are  wielded  with 
the  sceptre. 

It  is  difficult,  in  these  days  of  constitutional  government,  —  of 
that  more  equitable  distribution  of  power  which  our  present 
and  other  heroes  have  won  for  us,  —  to  conceive  how  so  grave 
a  political  murder  as  the  execution  of  Lord  William  Russell 
could  have  been  perpetrated.  But  the  very  difficulty  which  we 
now  have  of  understanding  how  so  terrible  a  crime  could  have 
been  enacted,  should  show  us  the  vast  progress  which  has  been 
made  in  political  morality;  and  the  crime  itself  should  be  a 
warning  to  ourselves  and  to  posterity  against  allowing  political 
passions  to  rise  beyond  the  bounds  of  moderation,  a  wholesome 
respect  for  law  and  order ;  for  if  these  were  to  be  again  tram- 
pled down,  future  historians  might  probably  have  to  chronicle 
political  crimes  as  terrible  and  as  reprehensible  as  that  we  are 
recording. 


66  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Lord  William  Russell,  third  son  of  the  fifth  Earl  and  first 
Duke  of  Bedford,  the  distinguished  supporter  of  constitutional 
liberty,  was  born  about  the  year  1641.  In  1679,  when  Charles  II. 
found  it  necessary  to  ingratiate  himself  with  the  Whigs,  Lord 
Russell  was  appointed  one  of  the  members  of  the  Privy  Council. 
He  soon,  however,  found  that  his  party  was  not  in  the  King's 
confidence ;  and  the  recall  of  the  Duke  of  York  without  their 
concurrence  induced  him  to  resign.  Although  his  temper  was 
mild  and  moderate,  his  fear  of  a  Catholic  succession  induced 
him  to  take  decisive  steps  to  exclude  the  Duke  of  York.  In 
June,  1680,  he  went  publicly  to  Westminster  Hall,  and  at  the 
Court  of  King's  Bench  presented  the  Duke  as  a  recusant;  and 
in  the  November  following  he  carried  up  the  exclusion  bill  to 
the  House  of  Lords,  at  the  head  of  two  hundred  members 
of  Parliament.  The  King  dissolved  the  Parliament,  evidently 
resolved  to  govern  thenceforward  without  one ;  and  arbitrary 
principles  were  openly  avowed  by  the  partisans  of  the  Court. 
Alarmed  at  this  state  of  things,  many  of  the  Whig  leaders 
favored  strong  expedients  to  counteract  them ;  and  a  plan  of 
insurrection,  though  imperfectly  designed,  was  formed  for  a 
simultaneous  rising  in  England  and  Scotland.  Among  these 
leaders,  besides  the  Dukes  of  Monmouth  and  Argyll,  were  the 
Lords  Russell,  Essex,  and  Howard,  Algernon  Sidney,  and 
Hampden.  They  differed  in  their  views,  however ;  and  it  is  now 
generally  admitted  that  Lord  Russell,  looking  chiefly  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  Duke  of  York,  desired  only  the  preservation 
of  the  Protestant  faith,  the  most  public  proof  of  which  is  prob- 
ably to  be  found  in  the  reversal  of  his  attainder  among  the 
very  first  acts  of  William  and  Mary.  He  was  accused  of  having 
engaged  in  the  "  Rye  House  Plot,"  which  had  for  its  object  the 
assassination  of  the  King  on  his  return  from  Newmarket,  and 
was  on  this  pretext  committed  to  the  Tower,  tried,  condemned, 
and  executed  in  July,  1683,  being  then  in  the  forty-second  year 
of  his  age. 

The  trial  took  place  in  the  Old  Bailey  Sessions  House ;  there 
Lord  Russell  was  brought  to  the  bar.  It  is  true  that  this  court 
in  Charles  the  Second's  time  was  more  picturesque,  with  its 


LORD   WILLIAM   RUSSELL.  67 

carved  oaken  fittings,  hangings,  etc.,  than  now.  The  whole 
scene  of  the  trial  is  admirably  represented  in  the  late  Sir  George 
Hayter's  historical  picture,  the  engraving  from  which  must  be 
familiar  to  many.  The  point  of  time  chosen  for  the  painting 
of  an  historical  work  is  but  of  an  instant ;  it  is  in  this  case  that 
in  which,  the  clerk  of  the  court  having  just  administered  the 
oath,  as  is  usual  on  such  occasions,  the  attorneys,  advocates, 
and  judges  are  in  a  state  of  bustle  and  anxious  anticipation. 
The  gallery  is  filled  by  numerous  spectators,  whose  faces 
exhibit  various  degrees  of  interest  in  the  cause  about  to  be 
decided.  The  deeper  responsibility  of  the  jury  is  shown  in  the 
prompt  actions  of  some,  and  in  the  general  though  perturbed 
expression  of  attention  to  the  business  before  them.  On  their 
elevated  tribunal  sit  the  judges ;  and  at  a  lower  table,  bestrewn 
with  books  and  documents,  are  the  advocates  and  attorneys. 
Some  of  the  law  clerks  are  busied  in  writing;  the  judges,  at 
least,  wear  the  semblance  of  being  calm  and  considerate ;  Holt, 
who  was  counsel  for  the  prisoner,  is  attentive  to  the  excep- 
tions which  Lord  Russell  has  taken  to  the  co-presence  of  the 
witnesses  produced  against  him ;  the  attorney  and  solicitor 
generals  are  conferring;  and  Serjeant  Jeffreys  (afterwards  so 
notorious  as  a  judge,  and  who  wears  a  countenance  worthy  of 
a  better  reputation),  in  his  professional  acuteness,  and  with  his 
forefinger  resting  on  his  brief,  has  risen,  apparently  to  catch 
some  advantage  which  may  militate  against  the  prisoner. 
Conspicuously  seated  on  a  bench  beneath  the  jury-box  are 
Rumsey,  formerly  a  republican  officer,  and  now,  as  Hume  says, 
a  reluctant  witness,  and  Sheppard,  who  had  just  been  examined, 
and  is  attending  to  the  whisper  of  'the  former  with  an  air  of 
evident  discomfort.  The  treacherous  Lord  Howard,  upon  whose 
evidence,  about  to  be  delivered,  must  mainly  rest  the  issue  of 
the  trial,  appears  at  once  surly,  apprehensive,  and  conscience- 
stricken.  In  Lord  John  Russell's  biography  of  his  illustrious 
ancestor  he  informs  us  that  "  Lord  Howard  began  his  evidence 
in  so  low  a  tone  that  one  of  the  jury  said,  'We  can't  hear  you, 
my  lord ; '  upon  which  his  lordship,  alluding  to  the  suicide  or 
murder  of  the  Earl  of  Essex,  which  had  taken  place  that  very 


68  OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

morning,  replied,  '  There  is  an  unhappy  accident  happened 
which  hath  sunk  my  voice.  I  was  but  just  now  acquainted 
with  the  fate  of  my  Lord  of  Essex.'  Having  thus  shown,"  adds 
Lord  John,  "  his  sensibility  at  the  death  of  one  of  his  victims, 
Lord  Howard  proceeded  to  take  away  the  life  of  another." 

At  the  bar,  backed  by  his  personal  friends,  and  conspicuous 
by  his  noble  presence,  stands  Lord  Russell  himself, — calm, 
dignified,  self-collected,  equal  to  either  fortune  which  may 
await  him ;  and  immediately  beneath  him  sits  his  wife,  Rachel, 
Lady  Russell,  by  whom  he  was  assisted  during  his  trial ;  and 
below  the  bar  he  is  attended  by  many  faithful  friends.  The 
presence  of  Lady  Russell  brings  forcibly  to  our  minds  the 
devoted  attachment  and  the  sentiment  of  patriotism  which  over- 
came the  natural  timidity  of  her  sex,  and  enabled  her  to  step 
publicly  forward  to  aid  her  husband  in  those  anxious  hours  of 
trial,  when  conspired  against  and  assailed  by  all  the  villanous 
means  which  despotism  and  its  satellites  know  too  well  how  to 
array  against  an  enemy.  There  she  sits,  attentive  and  pen  in 
hand,  looking  anxiously  towards  her  husband,  all  consciousness 
of  public  observation  being  absorbed  in  his  peril  and  her  own 
sense  of  duty.  That  act  has  fixed  her  in  the  grateful  recollec- 
tion of  the  country,  and  as  one  of  England's  foremost  heroines. 

We  see  the  helmeted  halberdier  who  has  the  custody  of  Lord 
Russell ;  and  among  his  lordship's  friends,  earnestly  attentive 
to  the  proceedings,  may  be  noticed  the  Duke  of  Somerset,  the 
Marquis  of  Halifax,  Lord  Cavendish,  Mr.  Howard,  and  the  two 
prelates,  Burnet  and  Tillotson. 

Lord  Russell  met  death  with  the  equanimity  which  through 
life  had  always  distinguished  him.  Arrived  at  the  scaffold  in 
Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,  he  knelt  down  and  prayed  three  or  four 
minutes  by  himself.  When  that  was  done  he  removed  his  coat 
and  waistcoat,  and  put  on  a  cap  which  he  had  brought  in  his 
pocket,  fearing  his  servant  might  not  get  up  to  him,  and  took 
off  his  cravat  without  the  least  change  of  countenance.  Just  as 
he  was  going  down  to  the  block  some  one  called  out  to  make 
a  lane  that  the  Duke  of  Albemarle  might  see,  upon  which  he 
looked  full  that  way.  Dr.  Burnet  had  advised  him  not  to  turn 


LORD    WILLIAM    RUSSELL.  69 

about  his  head  when  it  was  once  on  the  block,  and  not  to  give 
a  signal  to  the  executioner;  these  directions  he  punctually  at- 
tended to. 

"  When  he  had  lain  down,"  says  Dr.  Burnet,  "  I  once  looked 
at  him,  and  saw  no  change  in  his  looks ;  and  though  he  was 
still  lifting  up  his  hands  there  was  no  trembling,  though  in  the 
moment  in  which  I  looked  the  executioner  happened  to  be  lay- 
ing the  axe  to  his  neck,  in  order  to  take  aim;  I  thought  it 
touched  him,  but  am  sure  he  seemed  not  to  mind  it.  The 
executioner,  at  two  strokes,  cut  off  the  head." 

We  must  again  turn  to  the  now  desolate  Rachel,  Lady  Rus- 
sell. She  was  to  her  lord  the  chosen  mistress  of  his  heart,  the 
affectionate  companion  of  his  life,  the  tender  and  solicitous 
mother  of  his  children.  These  qualities  were  sufficient  to 
stamp  her  character  as  amiable;  her  public  conduct  mark  it  as 
sublime.  She  attended  her  husband  in  prison  upon  a  charge 
of  high  treason,  and  divided  her  day  between  the  soothing 
attention  which  his  situation  required  and  the  active  investiga- 
tions which  his  defence  demanded.  She  appeared  at  the  Ses- 
sions House,  where  a  nobleman's  wife  might  least  be  expected, 
as  his  secretary,  writing  with  her  own  hand  in  a  court  of  justice 
those  notes  from  which  he  was  to  plead  when  his  life  was  at 
stake.  And  after  his  condemnation  she  continued  to  make 
anxious  and  unceasing  solicitations  on  every  side  to  obtain  his 
pardon ;  and  yet  amidst  these  restless  endeavors  to  save  his 
life,  we  have  to  admire  the  fortitude  which  abstained  from  even 
hinting  to  the  patriot  she  was  about  to  see  perish  on  the  scaf- 
fold that  his  existence  might  be  prolonged  by  means  degrading 
to  his  spirit  or  inconsistent  with  his  honor. 

Mr.  Fox,  with  his  accustomed  energy  of  thought  and  sim- 
plicity of  taste,  writes  of  the  twin  patriots  who  were  sacrificed 
to  the  tyranny  of  the  Second  Charles:  "Thus  fell  Russell  and 
Sidney,  —  two  names  that  will,  it  is  hoped,  be  forever  dear  to 
every  English  heart.  When  their  memory  shall  cease  to  be  an 
object  of  veneration,  it  requires  no  spirit  of  prophecy  to  foretell 
that  English  liberty  will  be  fast  approaching  to  its  final  consum- 
mation. Their  deportment  was  such  as  might  be  expected 


70  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

from  men  who  knew  themselves  to  be  suffering,  not  for  their 
crimes,  but  for  their  virtues*  In  courage  they  were  equal ;  but 
the  fortitude  of  Russell,  who  was  connected  with  the  world  by 
private  and  domestic  ties  which  Sidney  had  not,  was  put  to  the 
severer  trial ;  and  the  story  of  the  last  days  of  this  excellent 
man's  life  fills  the  mind  with  such  a  mixture  of  tenderness  and 
admiration  that  I  know  not  any  scene  in  history  that  more 
powerfully  excites  our  sympathy  or  goes  more  directly  to  the 
heart." 

The  embarrassment  in  which  every  honest  lover  of  liberty  is 
placed  when  submission  to  arbitrary  power  and  unprincipled 
machinations  is  opposed  by  the  difficulty,  perhaps  the  impossi- 
bility, of  making  lawful  resistance,  is  in  Lord  Russell's  case  per- 
fectly removed ;  for  his  public  conduct  in  every  iota  vindicates 
his  fame.  Despotism  can  generally  warp  Christian  texts  to  its 
service,  which,  opportunely  proclaimed  from  the  pulpit  and  the 
press,  would  appear  to  identify  royal  with  theocratical  author- 
ity, and  while  aiming  at  stultifying  the  rights  and  privileges  of 
free  inquiry  and  resistance,  is  intended  to  exact  dishonorable 
submission  by  giving  the  semblance  of  sacredness  to  acts  of 
real  tyranny.  But  neither  Burnet,  nor  Tillotson,  nor  Charles, 
nor  the  hope  of  pardon,  could  prevail  with  Lord  Russell  to 
lend  his  sanction  to  the  courtly  doctrines  of  divine  right  and 
non-resistance.  His  personal  danger,  therefore,  arose  out  of 
his  public  integrity  and  exemplary  virtue.  He  fell  in  resisting 
despotism  and  oppression. 


GEORGE   WASHINGTON. 

[BORN  1732.    DIED  1799.] 

TT  is  curious  to  note  the  way  in  which  the  same  circumstances 
-^  affect  different  minds.  To  one  man  a  great  soldier  is  a  hero 
and  a  great  benefactor ;  to  another  he  is  but  a  colossal  criminal. 


FAREWELL  t 


ARE  WELL  UttcSElUATEi 


GEORGE    WASHINGTON. 


GEORGE   WASHINGTON.  73 

Thus  there  may  be  one  view  of  the  liberator  of  the  American 
colonies  simply  as  a  rebel  against  his  king,  by  which  the  very 
patriotism  which  makes  him  great  becomes  the  one  unpardon- 
able crime  of  his  misguided  and  mischievous  career.  But  the 
end  to  be  achieved,  its  bearing  upon  the  welfare  of  mankind, 
must  be  the  final  and  substantial  tests  to  the  value  of  any  politi- 
cal revolution.  Whatever  may  be  the  influence  and  function  of 
circumstances  over  the  generality  of  mankind,  it  is  certain  that 
in  some  individual  cases  the  current  of  the  world's  history  is 
•changed,  whether  for  good  or  evil,  by  the  mental  energy  of  a 
few  individual  men.  It  is,  therefore,  a  fact  that  George  Wash- 
ington was  the  controlling  spirit  of  the  great  revolution  known 
as  the  American  War  of  Independence.  And  it  must  be  admit- 
ted by  all  candid  and  unbiassed  judgments  that  the  movement 
was  one  which  under  the  circumstances  could  not  honor- 
ably or  even  safely  be  avoided,  and  that  the  War  of  Indepen- 
dence, therefore,  was  both  necessary  and  just.  In  this  light 
the  character  of  Washington  receives  a  lustre,  and  his  motives 
assume  a  dignity,  to  which  no  mere  provincial  insurgent  could 
possibly  be  entitled,  however  pure  his  intentions  or  profound 
his  personal  grievances.  The  grandeur  of  the  event,  the  vast 
importance  of  its  issues,  the  momentous  results  which  success 
or  failure  must  entail  upon  the  whole  population  of  a  mighty 
continent,  have  brought  down  upon  the  scene  a  fierce  light  of 
scrutiny  in  which  the  figure  of  the  calm,  silent  leader  stands 
nevertheless  without  blemish.  Fearless  of  any  man's  censure, 
his  course  was  direct  and  unwavering,  his  integrity  unsullied, 
his  justice  inflexible.  "  He  was,"  safys  Jefferson,  "  in  every 
sense  of  the  word,  a  wise,  a  good,  and  a  great  man." 

George  Washington  was  born  on  the  22d  of  February,  1732, 
in  Westmoreland  County,  Virginia.  His  ancestors  had  been 
settled  as  planters  in  that  remote  district  for  three  generations. 
About  the  year  1657  two  brothers,  John  and  Lawrence,  emi- 
grated from  Lancashire  and  established  themselves  on  the  Poto- 
mac River.  John,  the  elder,  had  two  sons,  Lawrence  and  John. 
Lawrence  had  three  children,  John,  Augustine,  and  Mildred. 
Augustine  was  the  father  of  George.  He  was  twice  married, 


74  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

having  four  children  by  his  first  marriage  and  six  by  his  sec- 
ond. George  was  the  eldest  of  the  second  family.  Not  long 
after  his  birth  his  father  removed  from  Westmoreland  to  a  spot 
on  the  east  side  of  the  Rappahannock,  in  Stafford  County, 
opposite  Fredericksburg.  When  George  was  ten  years  old  his 
father  died.  His  mother  lived  long  enough  to  see  him  Presi- 
dent of  the  New  Republic.  On  the  father's  death,  in  1743, 
his  extensive  property  was  divided  by  will  among  his  children, 
Lawrence,  the  eldest  son,  obtaining  a  plantation  on  the  Poto- 
mac, since  become  memorable  and  almost  sacred  as  Mount 
Vernon.  To  George  was  bequeathed  the  estate  in  Stafford 
County,  on  which  the  family  were  then  residing.  Eleven  years 
afterward  Lawrence  died,  leaving  a  daughter,  who  never  en- 
joyed good  health  and  who  died  at  the  age  of  eighteen.  In 
this  way  the  future  liberator  became  possessor  of  the  world- 
renowned  mansion  which  is  so  inseparably  connected  with  his 
name. 

In  the  district  of  country  where  he  spent  the  first  -years  of 
his  life  there  were  but  few  advantages  for  education  outside  the 
family  circle.  In  some  instances,  where  the  plantations  were 
sufficiently  near  each  other,  several  households  .contributed  to 
provide  a  school.  But  planters  who  lived  in  the  remoter  dis- 
tricts could  only  obtain  the  advantages  of  education  for  their 
children  by  means  of  private  tutors  who  resided  in  the  house- 
hold. In  the  case  of  Washington  it  appears  that  even  this 
means  of  tuition  was  not  found.  But  there  is  ample  reason  to 
believe  that  his  parents  fully  and  faithfully  executed  the  trust 
committed  to  them,  and  by  enlightened  and  diligent  instruction 
and  discipline  developed  the  admirable  qualities  which  nature 
had  bestowed  upon  the  quiet  and  thoughtful  youth. 

He  was  born  with  a  physique  of  the  noblest  kind.  Tall  in 
stature  and  massive  in  build,  he  was  admirably  fitted  by  nature 
for  command,  his  moral  qualities  and  mental  gifts  completing 
the  grandeur  of  his  character.  To  these  starting-points  of 
advantage  were  added  habits  which  could  only  have  been  the 
result  of  a  most  careful  education.  From  childhood  he  was 
remarkable  for  neatness,  method,  caution,  and  self-control,  — 


GEORGE   WASHINGTON.  75 

qualities  which  constitutionally  could  scarcely  be  accounted 
for.  That  early  life  on  the  banks  of  the  Rappahannock  was 
the  making  of  the  future  general  and  statesman.  His  English 
ancestors  belonged  to  the  best-bred  class  of  the  mother  coun- 
try ;  and  the  characteristics  of  high  culture  were  transmitted  to 
the  latest  born,  not  weakened,  but  rather  heightened,  by  the 
circumstances  of  the  patriarchal  life  of  the  family.  The  exten- 
sive domains,  the  independence  of  life  and  manners  incident 
to  a  community  of  planters,  the  hospitality  practised  among 
them,  and  the  countless  interesting  and  romantic  features  and 
details  of  wilderness  scenery  and  experience,  contributed  to 
enlarge  the  elements  of  an  unusual  and  noble  character. 

At  fourteen  years  of  age  we  find  him  at  school ;  and  while 
there  it  was  proposed  to  obtain  for  him  a  commission  as  a  mid- 
shipman in  the  Royal  Navy.  Just,  however,  as  this  project 
was  about  to  be  accomplished,  it  was  defeated  by  the  earnest 
interposition  of  his  mother.  It  is  a  curious  reflection  to  think 
what  would  have  been  the  result  of  certain  changes  in  the  des- 
tiny of  some  men,  —  if,  for  instance,  Oliver  Cromwell  had  been 
permitted  to  emigrate,  if  Hampden  had  not  been  killed  at 
Chalgrove,  if  Washington  had  entered  the  navy,  or  if  a  thou- 
sand other  imaginary  alternatives  of  history  had  occurred. 
The  best  answer  to  all  such  idle  speculation  is  the  fact  that 
they  did  not  occur.  Destiny  rules  otherwise. 

After  the  project  of  making  a  sailor  of  George  had  been 
abandoned,  it  was  decided  to  educate  him  for  the  profession  of 
a  land  surveyor.  Thus  it  was  that  he  became  a  proficient  in 
geometry  and  trigonometry,  and  at  sixteen  left  school  to  enter 
upon  his  profession,  which  at  that  time,  in  a  comparatively 
new  colony,  was  regarded  as  both  lucrative  and  important. 
His  manuscripts  and  drawings  executed  while  studying  for 
a  surveyor  have  been  preserved,  and  show  that  he  was  well 
qualified  for  his  business.  He  never  did  anything  for  show. 
Whatever  he  professed  he  knew.  His  school  exercises  were 
characterized  by  the  same  neatness,  regularity,  and  order  which 
marked  all  the  productions  and  actions  of  his  future  life.  In 
March,  1748,  he  entered  upon  the  important  office  of  exploring 


76  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

and  surveying  the  extensive  estates  of  Lord  Fairfax,  his  kins- 
man by  marriage,  for  the  purpose  of  dividing  it  into  lots  to 
suit  the  requirements  of  continually  incoming  settlers.  A  jour- 
nal which  he  kept  of  his  adventures  on  this  expedition  is  inter- 
esting, as  showing  the  kind  of  training  which  was  preparing 
him  for  the  high  destiny  to  which  he  was  afterwards  called. 
It  was  a  life  of  privation  and  peril,  but  at  the  same  time  it  was 
full  of  excitement.  Naturally  powerful  of  frame,  this  adven- 
turous life  favored  the  development  of  activity  and  strength. 
Three  years'  experience  gave  him  a  firmness  of  muscle  and 
vigor  of  physical  energy  which  few  men  ever  attain  at  any  age. 
With  such  a  frame  and  after  such  experience,  encountered  vol- 
untarily, there  was  no  danger  either  of  his  being  seduced  by 
luxury  or  deterred  by  danger  from  what  he  considered  the  path 
of  duty.  With  the  pleasures  of  society  and  the  luxury  of  in- 
dolence within  his  reach,  he  sought  for  a  career  weighted  with 
hardship  and  privation.  He  believed  himself  created  to  play 
a  more  manly  part  in  life.  As  to  society,  his  private  journal 
and  even  his  letters  show  that  he  was  by  no  means  insensible  to 
the  amenities  of  fashionable  life  or  the  charms  of  feminine  conver- 
sation. But  to  such  a  disposition  as  his  a  life  of  ease  and  noth- 
ing else  would  have  been  torture.  Peril  became  his  pleasure, 
and  labor  his  indulgence.  Hence  it  followed  that  he  gained 
respect  and  admiration  from  all  who  knew  him;  and  herein  we 
see  the  force  of  his  character. 

His  experience  as  a  surveyor  was,  moreover,  of  great  advan- 
tage to  him  as  giving  him  a  minute  acquaintance  with  the  con- 
dition and  character  of  the  original  settlers, —  especially  of  the 
backwoodsmen  who  were  among  the  earliest  European  occu- 
pants of  Washington's  own  section.  These  remarkable  people 
constituted  the  pioneer  circle  of  the  expanding  colonies,  and 
at  this  time  formed  a  large  proportion  of  the  whole  Southern 
colonial  population.  The  strip  of  emigrant  occupancy  stretch- 
ing along  the  coast  of  the  Atlantic  consisted  of  two  distinct 
parts,  —  one  the  mercantile  and  seafaring  class,  occupying  the 
narrow  sea-board  ;  the  other  the  exploring  backwoodsmen,  in- 
vaders of  the  primeval  forest.  Among  the  latter  Washington 


GEORGE    WASHINGTON.  77 

spent  most  of  the  three  years  of  his  surveyor's  life.  He 
learned  intimately  their  habits  and  manners ;  and  when  after- 
wards he  was  called  upon  to  enroll  an  army  drafted  largely 
upon  this  hardy  and  independent  race,  he  was  the  only  leader 
thoroughly  capable  of  commanding  them.  Among  the  rough 
and  sturdy  foresters  he  inured  himself  to  the  utmost  simplicity 
of  life.  He  won  their  sympathy  by  mixing  in  their  contests  of 
agility  and  strength,  and  compelled  their  admiration  by  his  own 
surpassing  skill,  strength,  and  intrepidity.  In  his  surveying 
excursions  he  also  acquired  that  mastery  in  horsemanship 
which  was  the  envy  of  his  brother  officers  and  companions. 
Afterwards,  as  a  military  leader,  every  one  declared  that  he 
possessed  an  ease,  dignity,  and  control  of  the  animal  which 
they  never  saw  elsewhere.  Among  other  anecdotes  told  of  his 
equestrian  accomplishments,  it  is  related  that  when  a  youth 
there  was  on  his  mother's  estate  a  young  horse  so  wild,  fierce, 
and  powerful  that  no  one  could  be  found  able  or  willing  to 
break  him.  Several  strong  and  experienced  horsemen  had 
been  utterly  baffled.  Immediately,  on  hearing  of  the  circum- 
stance, George  resolved  on  trying  his  hand  with  the  colt.  The 
experiment  took  place  before  a  crowd  of  spectators.  By  the 
usual  stratagems  he  succeeded  in  coaxing  the  animal  near 
enough  for  him  to  spring  upon  his  back.  Instantly  the  horse 
leaped  into  the  air,  and  dashed  round  the  field,  flinging,  rear 
ing,  and  kicking  with  the  greatest  violence.  But  George  kept 
his  seat  firmly  and  steadily.  Away  flew  the  enraged  and  frantic 
creature  wildly,  from  point  to  point,  —  plunging,  rearing,  and 
foaming.  It  was  all  in  vain ;  George  could  not  be  dislodged. 
At  last  the  noble  animal,  whose  spirit  was  as  indomitable  as 
that  of  his  rider,  gave  one  desperate  and  mighty  leap  and  fell 
dead  to  the  earth. 

Washington's  experience  in  the  backwoods  also  brought  him 
much  into  contact  with  the  Indians.  All  along  the  colonial 
frontier  no  subject  contributed  so  much  to  the  every-day 
thoughts  and  conversation  of  the  settlers  as  their  relations  to 
the  savage  tribes  which  hovered  about  their  clearings.  Wash- 
ington knew  the  character  of  the  wily  and  implacable  red-skin, 


78  OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

and  the  best  manner  of  dealing  with  him.  His  training  for  the 
coming  destiny  was  marvellous.  Another  and  by  no  means 
unimportant  quality  as  a  soldier  which  this  training  gave  him 
was  the  skill  in  estimating  rapidly  the  features  of  an  extensive 
country.  He  possessed  at  the  outset  of  his  career  an  accom- 
plishment which  is  usually  one  of  the  last  attainments  of  a 
general,  and  the  result  of  long  experience  in  the  conduct  and 
arrangement  of  large  bodies  of  men. 

In  his  nineteenth  year  he  was  appointed  a  major  of  the 
militia  then  being  trained,  and  adjutant-general  in  one  of  the 
districts  of  Virginia,  and  thus  entered  upon  the  second  period 
of  his  probation.  At  this  time  the  frontier  was  threatened  with 
Indian  depredations  and  French  encroachments.  France  had 
just  unfolded  her  ambitious  design  of  connecting  Canada  with 
Louisiana,  and  in  this  way  enclosing  within  a  French  cordon 
the  British  colonies  in  North  America.  The  army  was  directed 
to  establish  a  line  of  posts  from  the  lakes  to  the  Ohio.  This 
district  the  English  maintained  to  lie  within  the  boundaries  of 
Virginia.  Dinv/iddie,  the  lieutenant-governor  of  the  province, 
alarmed  by  a  movement  which  involved  such  important  inter- 
ests, thought  it  proper  officially  to  warn  the  French  to  desist 
from  pressing  their  scheme,  which  he  deemed  a  violation  of 
existing  treaties.  The  great  difficulty  was  to  select  a  proper 
agent  to  carry  this  perilous  message.  He  must  pass  through 
an  unexplored  wilderness,  tenanted  by  tribes  of  Indians,  most 
of  whom  were  hostile  to  the  British  settlers.  In  October,  1753, 
Washington,  who  had  volunteered  for  the  appointment,  received 
his  commission  and  commenced  his  journey.  The  peril  and 
fatigue  of  this  enterprise  had  not  been  overrated.  But  the 
judgment  and  perseverance  displayed  by  Washington  raised 
him  still  more  in  public  opinion,  and  gave  a  reliable  earnest  of 
his  future  services.  The  next  year  he  fought  a  superior  force 
of  the  enemy,  and  brought  off  his  own  men  by  an  honorable 
capitulation.  Owing  to  an  order  from  the  War  Office,  which  he 
rightly  thought  degrading  to  provincial  officers,  he  resigned  his 
commission;  and  as  he  had  just  succeeded  to  the  estate  at 
Mount  Vernon,  he  retired  thither,  resolved  to  devote  his  life  to 


GEORGE  WASHINGTON.  79 

agriculture  and  the  study  of  philosophy.  This  resolution  lasted 
about  two  months.  Meantime  he  had  been  elected  a  member 
of  the  House  of  Burgesses,  and  found  time  for  public  as  well  as 
private  duties.  His  chief  rural  amusement  was  hunting.  He 
exported  the  produce  of  his  farms  to  London,  Liverpool,  and 
Bristol,  and  imported  everything  required  either  in  his  house  or 
on  his  estate.  In  the  House  of  Burgesses,  where  his  attendance 
was  punctual,  he  seldom  spoke ;  but  as  he  always  made  him- 
self master  of  the  subject  under  discussion,  his  opinion  was 
greatly  valued  and  often  sought  by  his  colleagues. 

In  1755  Washington  joined  as  a  volunteer  the  army  of  Gen- 
eral Braddock,  whose  purpose  it  was  to  expel  the  French  garri- 
son from  Fort  du  Quesne,  now  Pittsburg.  An  overwhelming 
defeat  of  the  British  troops,  followed  by  a  rapid  retreat  from  the 
field  of  battle,  ended  the  campaign  disastrously.  Braddock  was 
killed.  Washington  had  two  horses  shot  under  him  while  carry- 
ing the  general's  orders  through  the  thickest  of  the  fight.  He 
was  repeatedly  fired  at  by  the  enemy's  Indian  marksmen,  who 
afterwards  declared  that  the  brave  Long-knife  bore  a  charmed  life, 
and  could  not  be  harmed  by  their  bullets.  Providence  seemed 
to  have  preserved  him  in  a  most  signal  manner  in  this  instance. 

Such,  in  brief,  was  the  moral  and  physical  training  of  Wash- 
ington for  the  part  that  he  was  destined  to  play  in  the  great 
coming  struggle  between  Great  Britain  and  her  colonies.  In 
1759  he  married  Mrs.  Custis.  His  wife  was  a  young  widow 
lady  with  two  little  children  and  broad  estates,  which  added  to 
his  own  extensive  property  made  him  one  of  the  most  impor- 
tant land-owners  in  the  province.  With  this  independence  of 
position,  and  his  vast  and  varied  experience,  he  ripened  for  the 
great  task  of  first  liberating  and  then  governing  a  nation. 

In  his  forty-third  year,  just  when  the  physical  vigor  is  un- 
diminished  and  the  intellect  fully  matured,  he  was  elected  com- 
mander-in-chief  of  all  the  colonial  forces,  and  immediately  re- 
paired to  the  scene  of  active  hostilities  before  Boston. 

Seven  years  he  maintained  with  heroic  fortitude,  under  the 
severest  trials  that  man  could  encounter,  the  cause  for  which 

he  had  unsheathed  his  sword  at  the  call  of  his    country.     We 
6 


go  OUR  GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 

know  not  whether  to  admire  him  most  in  the  hour  of  defeat 
or  in  the  moment  of  victory;  for  in  every  important  crisis  the 
demand  upon  his  greatest  qualities  as  a  leader  was  always  fully 
answered.  With  each  new  misfortune  he  rose  to  a  still  higher 
sense  of  the  great  responsibility  he  had  assumed.  When  he 
had  troops,  tie  fought  When  unable  to  keep  the  field,  he  took 
an  advantageous  and  threatening  defensive.  When  the  hopes  of 
the  peopie  were  at  their  lowest  ebb,  and  his  army  had  dwindled 
to  a  few  ragged  battalions,  he  tolled  the  tide  of  war  back  again 
towards  Tortune  by  the  most  brilliant  and  decisive  series  of 
combats  and  manoeuvres  that  the  whole  history  of  the  war  has 
recorded.  So  high  was  Washington's  bearing,  so  admirable  his 
control  of  the  most  diverse  elements,  so  serenely  did  he  look 
disaster,  obloquy,  and  suffering  in  the  face,  that  we  can  hardly 
think  of.  him  except  as  the  predestined  savior  of  his  country. 
The  time  produced  no  other  man  capable  of  confronting  each 
new  emergency  with  the  same  sublime  constancy  to  the  grqat 
end  and  aim  of  the  Revolution.  The  Congress  was  at  one 
time  ready  to  declare  him  dictator.  The  army,  grown  des- 
perate in  its  deep  distress  and  deeper  disgust  with  the  half 
measures  of  Congress,  wished  to  overturn  the  existing  civil 
control  under  the  lead  of  its  idolized  chief.  But  in  e.very  dark 
hour  Washington's  star  shone  out  bright  and  unsullied  by  any 
taint  of  personal  ambition,  nor  could  any  sense  of  personal 
wrong  turn  him  a  hair's  breadth  from  the  path  of  duty.  His  was 
a  great,  a  magnanimous  soul.  When  the  long  conflict  was  over 
he  laid  down  the  sword  that  had  never  been  sheathed  in  dis- 
honor. His  old  companions  in  arms  wept  like  children  when 
he  bade  them  farewell.  Compared  with  this,  what  was  the 
tribute  of  senates  or  the  applause  of  the  multitude?  Indeed  it 
may  be  said  of  Washington  that  there  is  scarcely  another  great 
figure  in  history  whose  character  and  services  have  been  esti- 
mated with  such  unanimous,  such  high,  approbation  as  his. 
His  mottoes  were,  "  Deeds,  not  words,"  and  "  For  God  and  my 
country ;  "  and  his  adherence  to  these  has  merited  the  everlasting 
verdict  of  history,  "  First  in  war,  first  in  peace,  and  first  in  the 
hearts  of  his  countrymen." 


II. 

PHILANTHROPY. 


JOHN    HOWARD. 


JOHN    HOWARD. 

[BORN  1726.    DIED  1790.] 

'T^HE  only  blemish  that  has  ever  been  thought  to  stain  the 
•*-  character  of  this  eminent  philanthropist  was  connected 
with  his  conduct  to  his  son.  It  has  been  laid  to  his  charge 
that  he  was  not  only  a  strict  but  a  severe  parent.  That  charge, 
however,  has  been  thoroughly  investigated  and  completely  dis- 
proved. The  youth  fell  into  dissolute  habits  early  in  life ;  they 
were  carefully  concealed  from  the  father,  and  being  unchecked 
they  brought  on  an  illness  which  resulted  in  madness.  He  sur- 
vived his  father  nine  years,  but  remained  to  the  end  a  hopeless 
lunatic.  John  Howard  was  an  affectionate  and  kind-hearted 
parent  as  well  as  a  single-minded  benefactor  of  his  race ;  and 
the  vast  improvement  of  the  condition  of  prisons  which  this 
century  has  witnessed  is  in  a  great  measure  owing  to  his  un- 
wearied exertions.  Though  the  son  of  a  London  tradesman, 
and  himself  apprenticed  to  a  grocer,  Howard  found  himself  at 
nineteen  years  of  age  in  possession  of  a  handsome  fortune,  pur- 
chased the  time  remaining  of  his  indenture,  and  made  a  tour  in 
France  and  Italy.  On  his  return  he  married  his  landlady,  out 
of  gratitude  for  her  kindness  in  having  nursed  him  through  a 
severe  illness,  though  she  was  twenty-seven  years  his  senior. 
In  three  years  she  died,  and,  desiring  to  aid  the  sufferers  from 
the  earthquake  in  Lisbon,  he  embarked  for  that  port.  Cap- 
tured by  a  French  privateer,  he  was  confined  as  a  prisoner  at 
Brest,  and  subsequently  taken  to  the  interior,  whence  he  was 
permitted  to  return  to  England  on  condition  of  providing  a 
suitable  exchange.  Having  married  again,  he  passed  seven 
years  of  wedded  life  in  continual  acts  of  benevolence  towards 
all  around  him.  But  his  wife  died  after  giving  birth  to  a  son, 
who  eventually  multiplied  his  father's  sorrows.  Bereaved  of  a 

85 


So  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

beloved  partner,  and  having  sent  his  son  to  a  distance  for  edu- 
cation, Howard  was  unable  to  bear  the  solitude  and  seclusion  of 
his  home  at  Cardington.  When  he  had  been  nominated  sheriff 
in  1773,  the  sight  of  so  many  miseries  and  abuses  in  the  prisons 
of  which  he  had  charge,  and  the  remembrance  of  all  he  had 
seen  when  confined  abroad  as  a  prisoner  of  war,  led  him  to 
apply  to  the  magistrates  for  some  remedy  of  the  most  glaring 
evils.  The  reply  which  he  received  induced  him  to  prosecute 
his  inquiries  further,  and  to  set  out  on  a  tour  of  inspection.  He 
visited  the  prisons  of  one  county  after  another;  and  at  last,  after 
having  seen  most  of  the  town  and  county  jails  of  England,  he 
accumulated  a  mass  of  'information,  and  laid  it,  in  March,  1774, 
before  the  House  of  Commons.  From  this  date  the  reform  of 
our  prison  system  begins.  Who  can  describe  the  depth  of 
prison  degradation  at  that  time?  Two  hundred  crimes  were  pun- 
ishable with  death,  the  cells  noisome,  the  food  of  the  coarsest, 
little  straw,  damp  walls;  narrow  cells,  bad  water,  sexes  huddled 
together,  stagnant  mire,  dunghills  within  the  walls,  brutal  jail- 
ers, months  of  unjust  imprisonment  before  trial,  no  regard  to 
health  or  decency,  and  jail  fever  decimating  the  miserable  in- 
mates. At  Ely  the  prisoners  by  night  were  caged  down  with 
iron  bars,  and  had  on  iron  collars  full  of  spikes !  But  Howard 
had  learned  by  suffering  to  pity  sufferers ;  and  his  famous  work 
"  On  the  State  of  Prisons  in  England  and  Wales "  caused 
mercy  to  rejoice  against  judgment  in  many  places.  When 
called  to  the  bar  of  the  House  of  Commons,  he  produced  an 
overwhelming  impression,  and  he  carried  the  legislature  with 
him  in  mitigating  the  dreadful  evils  which  it  was  his  mission  to 
combat.  And  what  were  the  remedial  measures  Howard  pro- 
posed? Prevention  of  crime  by  education,  productive  prison 
labor,  graduated  punishments,  encouraging  industrious  and  well- 
conducted  prisoners  by  discharge  before  the  expiration  of  their 
term,  moral  and  religious  instruction,  and,  lastly,  the  law  of 
kindness.  Read  Howard's  Report  on  the  State  of  Prisons  and 
compare  it  with  "Seven  Years  of  Penal  Servitude"  (1878),  and 
you  will  see  what  one  century  has  effected  through  the  persistent 
carrying  out  of  this  great  philanthropist's  remedial  measures. 


PHILIPPE    PINEL. 


PHILIPPE   PINEL.  89 

There  was  scarcely  a  country  in  Europe  that  Howard  left  un- 
visited,  and  the  results  of  his  travels  and  labors  were  embodied  in 
the  appendices  to  his  first  report.  Determined  at  the  risk  of  his 
life  to  inspect  the  Lazaretto  system,  he  would  not  allow  a  ser- 
vant to  accompany  him  because  unwilling  to  expose  him  to 
so  much  danger.  He  returned  to  Smyrna  from  Constantinople 
while  the  plague  raged  there,  for  the  very  purpose  of  sailing 
from  an  infected  port  to  Venice,  and  undergoing  the  rigors  of 
the  quarantine  system.  It  was  when  on  his  way  through  the 
East  to  Russia,  and  before  he  had  proceeded  farther  than  the 
Grimea,  that  Howard  was  seized  with  a  rapid  illness,  which  he 
believed  to  be  an  infectious  fever  caught  in  prescribing  for  a 
lady.  In  January,  1790,  this  precious  life  was  taken  away 
from  earth ;  but  grateful  nations  will  never  forget  the  name  of 
Howard.  Every  prison  in  Europe  feels  something  of  his  benign 
influence  at  the  present  moment ;  and  every  prisoner  has  reason 
to  bless  his  memory,  for,  however  sad  and  lonely  may  be  his 
lot,  however  severe  the  sufferings  he  has  by  his  misconduct 
brought  upon  himself,  that  lot  would  have  been  more  sad,  those 
sufferings  more  severe,  but  for  John  Howard  and  his  benevolent 
and  untiring  exertions. 

So  true  it  is,  that,  if  the  evil  that  men  do  lives  after  them,  the 
good  that  is  done  by  good  men  is  to  bear  abundant  fruitage 
"for  all  time." 


PHILIPPE    PINEL. 

[BORN  1745.    DIED  1826.] 

TN  the  pages  of  that  masterpiece  of  genius  and  of  horror,  the 
-*-  "  Inferno  "  of  Dante,  we  read  how  those  lost  to  salvation 
were  tortured  by  every  species  of  torment  the  ingenuity  of  the 
spirit  of  evil  was  capable  of  devising.  For  many  centuries 
those  unhappy  creatures  who  had  wholly  or  partially  lost  their 


90  OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

reason  were  subjected  by  their  fellow-men  to  cruelties  which  it 
seems  impossible  to  think  that  human  nature  could  have  been 
guilty  of.  It  is  still  more  dreadful  to  reflect  how  it  was  even 
commended  as  a  just  and  Christian,  as  well  as  expedient,  prac- 
tice to  confine  the  lunatic  to  a  living  inferno,  even  as  the  soul 
of  the  wicked  was  confined  to  an  eternal  one.  In  the  ignorant 
superstition  of  the  times  the  lunatic  was  literally  believed  "  to 
be  possessed  of  a  devil,"  and  therefore  it  was  argued  he  should 
be  treated  as  one  belonging  to  the  Devil.  He  was  to  be  placed 
in  chains  and  darkness,  he  was  to  be  starved  and  beaten,  and 
his  recovery,  if  possible,  was  only  to  be  effected  by  some  mir- 
acle of  cruelty  as  well  as  ingenuity.  And  yet,  despite  the 
growth  of  intelligence,  such  superstition  and  such  revolting 
treatment  was  still  in  existence  towards  the  close  of  the  last 
century.  But  then  came  the  French  Revolution,  which  with 
all  its  attendant  horrors,  with  all  its  cry  of  liberty,  made  the 
watchword  for  the  committal  of  the  greatest  enormities,  yet 
produced  a  liberty  of  nought  and  opinion  which  in  many 
respects  proved  a  blessing  to  the  progress  of  humanity.  The 
false  teaching  of  infidelity  was  everywhere  used  as  the  excuse 
and  in  the  advocacy  of  the  basest  immorality.  Every  theory 
and  opinion  having  the  barest  aspect  of  originality  was  hailed 
as  a  sign  of  a  regenerating  intelligence,  which  was  to  produce 
a  millennium  of  perfect  happiness.  In  every  science  sprang 
up  some  prophet  who  foretold  the  blessings  which  would  be 
showered  on  humanity  if  only  his  real  or  false  doctrines  were 
universally  accepted  and  implicitly  believed  in.  But  it  is  just 
to  own  that  all  the  prophets  of  the  great  Revolution  were  not 
false  ones.  Among  those  who  were  led  away  by  the  ardent 
zeal  for  progress  and  improvement  was  one  whose  labors  in 
the  cause  of  science  and  humanity  could  have  never  been  too 
much  overvalued.  We  have  seen  that  Howard,  now  known  as 
"  the  philanthropist,"  devoted  a  lifetime  to  the  good  work  of 
ameliorating  the  wretched  condition  of  prisoners  and  the  con- 
duct of  prison  management.  Philippe  Pinel  gave  up  all  his 
energy  and  talents  to  the  reform  of  the  existing  treatment 
of  the  insane,  and  succeeded  in  banishing  the  old  system  of 


PHILIPPE   PINEL.  91 

wicked  and  foolish  cruelty  by  which  those  unhappy  creatures 
had  hitherto  been  treated. 

In  the  beautiful  country  of  the  Tarn,  in  the  old  historic 
province  of  Languedoc,  Philippe  Pinel,  on  the  2oth  of  April, 
1745,  first  saw  the  light  at  the  Chateau  de  Rascas  of  Saint- 
Andre.  His  father  was  a  doctor  of  Saint-Paul,  a  man  of  some 
considerable  intelligence.  The  young  Pinel  was  first  educated 
at  the  college  of  Lavaur,  that  town  and  parish  which  in  the 
thirteenth  century  was  the  stronghold  of  the  Albigenses.  His 
father  having  determined  on  his  following  the  medical  profes- 
sion, he  was  afterwards  sent  to  Toulouse,  where  in  1773  he 
received  his  diploma.  At  Montpellier,  at  the  famous  school  of 
medicine,  he  perfected  his  professional  knowledge,  and  helped 
to  increase  his  income  and  add  to  his  position  by  giving 
lessons  in  mathematics.  Still,  like  every  Frenchman  of  intelli- 
gence and  ambition,  Philippe  Pinel  soon  came  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  Paris  alone  was  the  proper  field  for  his  talents ;  and 
as  he  owned  he  could  not  live  out  of  the  great  city,  the  year 
1778  found  him  a  resident  in  the  French  capital. 

The  young  doctor  did  not  wait  long  before  he  began  to  show 
his  particular  bent  for  one  most  important  branch  of  his  pro- 
fession, and  gave  up  the  best  part  of  his  studies  to  investigating 
the  existing,  authorities  on  the  treatment  of  lunacy.  Still  bet- 
ter than  all,  Philippe  Pinel  speedily  arrived  at  the  conclusion 
that  his  own  personal  observations  of  cases  of  insanity  might 
in  the  end  prove  more  useful  than  merely  following  in  the 
beaten  track  of,  or  slightly  improving  on,  the  systems  of  his 
predecessors  and  contemporaries.  However,  he  first  became 
generally  known  to  the  medical  and  scientific  world  by  his 
translation  from  English  of  Dr.  Culley's  work,  which  was  pub- 
lished in  Paris  under  the  title  of. "  Traite  de  Medecine  Pra- 
tique." At  that  time,  wretchedly  conducted  as  they  were,  the 
English  lunatic  asylums  were  considered  to  be  the  best  of  any 
in  Europe.  The  German  were  supposed  to  be  the  worst, 
although,  as  they  have  always  done  on  all  subjects,  the  Ger- 
man physicians  had  indulged  in  many  theories  on  the  treat- 
ment of  lunacy.  With  these  pundits  of  the  faculty  Pinel  had 


92  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

but  little  sympathy.  Indeed,  some  of  their  modes  of  treatment 
seem  to  suggest  that  the  pretended  curers  of  lunacy  were  more 
in  want  of  treatment  for  that  unhappy  complaint  than  even  the 
patients  submitted  to  their  charge.  One  of  their  favorite  tr\eo- 
ries  was  the  wondrous  power  of  sudden  surprises.  The  patient 
was  to  be  walked  slowly  over  a  floor,  and  then  unexpectedly 
let  through  a  trap-door  into  a  well  beneath.  Another  medical 
wiseacre  "  wished  for  machinery  by  which  a  patient  just  arrived 
at  an  asylum,  and  after  being  drawn  with  frightful  dangers  over 
a  metal  bridge  across  a  moat,  could  be  suddenly  raised  to 
the  top  of  a  tower  and  as  suddenly  lowered  into  a  dark  and 
subterranean  cavern ;  and  they  owned  that  if  they  could  be 
made  to  alight  among  snakes  and  serpents  it  would  be  still 
better." 

Yet  even  the  English  doctors,  who  had  such  a  strong  faith  in 
their  own  superiority,  still  vastly  approved  of  the  efficacy  of 
torture  in  the  cure  of  the  insane.  Dr.  Darwin  was  the  proud 
inventor  of  the  hideous  circular  swing.  Dr.  Cox  improved  on 
the  swing  by  suggesting  the  further  advantage  of  its  always 
being  used  in  the  dark ;  the  room,  dungeon,  or  cell  being  made 
pleasant  for  the  wretched  patient  by  the  introduction  of  wild 
noises  and  horrible  smells.  The  worthy  Dr.  Hallam  further 
remarked  of  this  instrument  of  torture,  "  that  no  well-regulated 
asylum  should  be  without  it."  It  was  not  until  the  question 
was  before  the  House  of  Commons  in  the  year  1815  that  Beth- 
lehem Hospital  left  off  being  a  show-place  for  holiday-makers, 
the  price  of  admission  being  only  the  moderate  sum  of  2d., 
so  that  all  classes  of  the  community  might  have  it  within 
their  power  to  come  and  torment  the  lunatics  at  their  pleasure, 
even  as  silly  and  cruel  children  nowadays  try  to  irritate  into 
fury  the  animals  imprisoned  behind  the  iron  bars  of  a  menag- 
erie. As  a  rule,  also,  despite  their  theorizing,  the  mad  doctors 
seldom  troubled  themselves  by  practising  on  their  patients 
unless  they  were  more  than  usually  violent,  or,  on  the  other 
hand,  from  their  extreme  docility  they  thought  they  could  be 
perfectly  safe  in  approaching  them.  Their  hands  and  feet  were 
chained  and  manacled,  a  ragged  blanket  was  placed  over  them 


PHILIPPE   PINEL.  93 

as  an  apology  to  cover  their  nakedness,  a  heap  of  straw  was 
strewn  on  the  floor  of  their  cells,  and  there,  in  darkness,  dirt, 
loneliness,  cold,  and  hunger,  they  were  left  to  themselves.  A 
deep-rooted  idea  prevailed  everywhere  as  to  a  lunatic  never 
being  safe  unless  chained  like  a  felon.  But  before  his  appoint- 
ment to  the  hospital  of  Bicetre  in  1793  as  mtdecin-en-chef,  Pinel 
had  determinedly  argued  in  the  salons  of  Paris  and  at  meetings 
of  the  savans  against  the  utter  folly  of  this  idea,  which  could 
only  be  considered  respectable  on  account  of  its  great  age.  In 
1792  Couthon  was  persuaded  by  Pinel  to  visit  the  insane  patients 
at  Bicetre.  The  good  doctor  asked  the  famous,  or  infamous, 
revolutionist  to  question  the  lunatics ;  but  he  shuddered  and 
turned  away  at  the  bare  thought  of  the  danger  he  might  incur 
by  going  near  them.  "  Do  what  you  please,"  said  he  to  Pinel ; 
"  you  will  become  their  victim." 

By  such  fears  as  these  the  doctor  was  but  little  affected.  He 
held  that  by  judicious  treatment,  by  a  mixture  of  kindness  and 
firmness,  by  an  untiring  patience,  and  by  never  under  any  cir- 
cumstances irritating  a  patient,  even  the  lunatic  supposed  to 
be  most  dangerous  might  be  allowed  a  great  share  of  liberty. 
Yet  so  bigoted  was  the  opposition  to  his  idea  of  allowing  any 
share  of  liberty  to  a  lunatic,  that  he  was  actually  attacked  by  a 
Paris  mob,  which  had  conceived  the  idea  that  the  doctor  in- 
tended to  let  the  most  dangerous  lunatics  loose  upon  the  city. 
One  of  Pinel's  first  experiments,  and  which  proved  the  perfect 
truth  of  his  theory,  was  with  an  English  captain,  who  for  forty 
years  had  been  chained  and  manacled  in  a  cell  of  the  Bicetre. 
This  man  was  acknowledged  to  be  a  most  dangerous  lunatic. 
His  paroxysms  of  madness  were  most  violent,  and  he  had  even 
killed  one  of  his  keepers  with  his  manacles.  Yet  Pinel  never 
for  one  moment  doubted  as  to  its  being  judicious  to  allow  his 
chains  to  be  taken  off.  Approaching  the  unhappy  creature,  he 
said  to  him,  "  Captain,  I  will  order  your  chains  to  be  taken  off 
and  give  you  liberty  to  walk  in  the  court,  if  you  will  promise 
me  to  behave  well  and  injure  no  one." 

As  might  be  imagined,  the  man  was  considerably  surprised, 
and  his  answer  was  by  no  means  unnatural. 


94  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

"  Yes,  I  promise  you  ;  but  you  are  laughing  at  me.  You  are 
all  too  afraid  to  touch  me." 

"  I  have  six  persons  ready  to  enforce  my  commands,  if  neces- 
sary," answered  Pinel.  "  Believe  me,  then,  on  my  word.  I  will 
give  you  your  liberty  if  you  will  put  on  this  strait- waistcoat." 

The  man  readily  submitted,  and,  his  chains  being  removed, 
he  was  left  to  do  as  he  pleased.  For  the  first  quarter  of  an 
hour,  owing  to  the  stiffness  of  his  limbs  from  his  long  and  close 
imprisonment,  he  could  hardly  rise  from  his  seat.  But  at 
length  he  gained  both  strength  and  courage,  and  leaving  his 
cell  walked  up  the  staircase,  gazing  at  the  sky,  and  uttering  the 
expression,  "  How  beautiful !  " 

For  the  rest  of  the  day  he  walked  about  in  evident  enjoy- 
ment, and  quite  free  from  the  least  sign  of  approaching  irrita- 
tion. In  the  evening  he  returned  of  his  own  accord  to  rest,  and, 
for  the  first  time,  a  comfortable  bed  being  prepared  for  him,  he 
fell  tranquilly  to  sleep. 

A  few  days  after  this  Pinel  released  fifty-three  patients  from 
their  chains  and  cells.  What  was  most  remarkable,  as  showing 
the  accuracy  of  his  judgment  and  his  sympathetic  power  of  dis- 
covering the  moral  and  physical  condition  of  his  patients,  was 
that  the  violent  lunatic  whom  he  had  first  released,  and  who 
before  that  time  was  considered  to  be  most  dangerous,  was  of 
the  greatest  use  to  the  institution  in  persuading  his  unhappy 
brethren  in  misfortune  to  so  quietly  conduct  themselves  as  to 
gain  the  approval  of  the  doctor,  and  so  gain  a  further  share  of 
liberty. 

In  1795,  owing  to  the  great  success  of  his  mode  of  treatment, 
Pinel  was  appointed  to  the  Salpetriere;  and,  his  fame  being 
now  spread  throughout  France  and  even  beyond  his  own  coun- 
try, he  was  made  Professeur  de  Physique  Mtdicale  at  the  Paris 
School  of  Medicine,  and  not  long  afterwards  Professeur  de 
Pathologique  Interne.  In  1803  he  was  awarded  the  honor  of 
being  elected  a  member  of  the  Institute,  and  was  made  secretary- 
general  of  that  learned  body. 

To  enumerate  the  particular  works  of  Pinel  would  be  only  to 
give  a  list  of  scientific  names  of  little  interest  to  the  general 


PHILIPPE    PINEL.  95 

reader.  However,  his  "  Nosographie"  and  his  "  Traite  Medico- 
Philosophique  sur  1' Alienation  Mentale,  ou  la  Manie,"  are  now 
universally  known  throughout  the  whole  of  the  medical  world. 
The  latter  work  was  translated  into  English  in  1802,  and  in  the 
"Edinburgh  Review  "was  received  with  more  or  less  adverse 
criticism.  It  even  received  a  heavy  attack  from  the  manager  of 
Bethlehem  Hospital ;  but,  considering  the  way  that  famous  in- 
stitution was  in  those  days  conducted,  Pinel  might  well  have 
taken  such  abuse  of  his  opinions  as  rather  a  compliment  to  his 
intelligence  and  humanity  than  as  a  conclusive  proof  of  his 
folly  or  his  ignorance. 

As  to  the  private  life  of  Pinel,  it  was  to  the  highest  degree 
exemplary.  Full  of  kindness,  disinterested,  generous,  and  liv- 
ing with  the  greatest  simplicity,  he  yet  possessed  a  firmness  of 
character  which  at  all  times  prevented  him  from  yielding  to  the 
least  temptation  of  evil.  Charitable  he  was  to  all  in  want. 
Condorcet  during  the  troublous  times  of  the  Revolution  found  a 
safe  home  in  the  house  of  Pinel.  In  demeanor  the  great  physi- 
cian was  naturally  modest,  so  much  so  that  it  was  often  mis- 
taken for  a  nervous  timidity.  He  was  a  man,  too,  above  all 
ungentlemanly  meanness,  and  would  never  at  any  time  join  in 
any  of  the  cabals  or  intrigues  of  the  college  faculty.  As  would 
follow  as  a  matter  of  course,  his  lectures  in  the  Facult6  de 
Paris  were  well  attended.  Still  Philippe  Pinel,  like  many  men 
of  shining  talents  joined  with  the  soundest  knowledge  and 
experience,  was  far  from  being  a  great  orator.  In  speaking  he 
failed  to  possess  an  easy  flow  of  words,  £nd  his  speeches  were 
frequently  broken  by  awkward  pauses.  But  what  could  not  be 
easily  followed  in  his  set  lectures  could  be  readily  gleaned  from 
them  when  published  in  print.  Yet  the  best  way  of  all  to  learn 
the  secrets  of  his  system  was  to  visit  the  asylums  of  the  Bicetre 
and  Salpetriere.  There  but  in  a  few  short  months  could  the 
medical  student  acquire  a  sound  knowledge  of  his  valuable  pre- 
cepts, and  still  more  quickly  learn  the  principles  of  his  daily 
practice. 

As  to  the  position  which  Pinel  holds  in  the  ranks  of  fame,  it 
is  not  nearly  so  exalted  as  it  should  be.     He  lived  in  an  age 


96  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

when  the  slaughter  of  millions  excited  more  attention  than  the 
salvation  of  thousands.  The  sounding  names  of  Mirabeau, 
Robespierre,  and  Danton,  of  Napoleon,  Ney,  and  his  comrades, 
have  helped  somewhat  to  obscure  that  of  Philippe  Pinel.  But 
he  has  a  fame  which  we  hope  will  for  many  centuries  burn  with 
a  gentle  and  kindly  light.  His  name  will  ever  be  a  sweet 
sound  to  the  ears  of  the  feeling  and  humane.  And  in  thinking 
of  him  we  cannot  but  call  to  mind  the  lines  of  Shirley, — 

"  Only  the  actions  of  the  just 
Smell  sweet  and  blossom  in  the  dust." 


ELIZABETH    FRY. 

[BORN  MAY  21,  1780.    DIED  OCT.  12,  1845.] 

AFTER  having  given  a  brief  memoir  of  Howard,  it  is  but 
natural  that  we  should   make  an  opportunity  of  noticing 
another  and,  if  possible,   still  more   devoted  friend   of  the  un- 
fortunate and   criminal  classes,  —  the   noble-minded    and  truly 
unselfish  Elizabeth  Fry. 

"  Woman's  mission  "  is  now  a  household  word.  It  was  Mrs. 
Fry's  opinion  that  every  woman  has  her  individual  vocation, 
and  that  in  following  it  she  fulfils  her  mission.  She  laid  great 
stress  on  circumstances  and  position  in  life,  and  on  personal 
abilities.  So  far  from  thinking,  as  is  now  too  commonly  and 
indiscriminately  thought,  that  any  woman  might  do  as  she  did, 
if  she  would,  she  considered  domestic  duties  to  be  the  first  and 
greatest  earthly  claims  in  the  life  of  woman.  Of  course  some 
allowance  for  peculiarities  of  opinion  on  minor  points  must  be 
made  in  consideration  of  the  tenets  of  the  Society  to  which  she 
belonged ;  but  aside  from  these  it  was  her  unqualified  convic- 
tion that  there  is  a  sphere  of  usefulness  open  to  all.  Ladies' 
work  in  general,  such  as  visiting  the  sick  and  poor,  looking 
after  village  schools,  and  assisting  the  work  of  benevolent 


ELIZABETH     FRY. 


ELIZABETH    FRY.  99 

societies,  she  by  no  means  overlooked.  These  matters  all  had 
her  fullest  appreciation.  Still  she  felt  there  was  something 
beyond.  There  was  the  hospital  and  the  prison.  There  were 
multitudes  of  homeless  and  abandoned  children.  There  were 
vast  numbers  of  her  own  sex,  sinking  daily  in  degradation  and 
guilt.  Many  who  had  been  once  in  pure  and  happy  homes,  or 
who  had  occupied  useful  positions  in  business,  or  domestic  ser- 
vice, already,  so  far  as  this  world  was  concerned,  were  sunk  and 
ruined  forevermore.  She  saw  these  poor  creatures  on  a  wide 
and  downward  road,  with  no  hand  outstretched  to  save  them 
from  their  inevitable  fate,  or  to  assist  them  in  helping  them- 
selves, when,  as  rarely  happened,  they  were  fcven  willing  to  be 
reclaimed.  Every  variety  and  every  grade  of  vice  met  her  in 
the  prisons  which  she  visited, — those  who  sinned  for  want  of 
thought,  and  those  who  revelled  in  their  guilt  and  gloried  in 
recklessness  and  impurity.  Yet  she  did  not  despair.  Her 
own  life  she  freely  devoted  to  what  others  thought  a  hopeless 
task,  and  she  firmly  believed  that  a  mighty  power  might  be 
wielded  by  her  own  sex  to  stem  this  torrent  of  vice,  —  a  force 
that  the  gentle,  the  educated,  the  virtuous,  might  exert  over 
the  ignorant  and  criminal.  The  way  in  which  this  moral  force 
was  to  be  brought  to  bear  she  pointed  out  by  walking  in  it 
herself,  — 

"And  in  her  duty  prompt  at  every  call 
She  watched  and  wept,  she  prayed  and  wept  for  all. 
She  tried  each  art,  reproved  each  dull  delay, 
Allured  to  brighter  worlds,  and  led  the  way." 

Elizabeth  Gurney  was  the  third  daughter  of  John  Gurney, 
Esq.,  a  merchant  of  Norwich,  where  she  was  born.  During 
her  sixth  year  the  family  removed  to  Earlham  Hall,  formerly 
belonging  to  the  Bacons,  and  in  this  home  her  unmarried 
life  was  spent.  Both  her  parents  were  descended  from  dis- 
tinguished Quaker  families,  —  her  father  from  the  Gurneys,  who 
were  the  associates  of  George  Fox ;  her  mother  from  the 
Scotch  Barclays,  the  most  noted  of  whom  was  Robert  Barclay, 
the  author  of  the  famous  apology  for  the  Quakers.  Hence 
very  early  in  life  she  became  the  subject  of  deep  religious 


100  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

impressions.  She  was  gifted  by  nature  with  a  good  voice  and 
a  strong  taste  for  music ;  but  these,  and  the  natural  accompani- 
ment of  dancing,  were  of  course  discouraged  by  the  religious 
circle  in  which  she  moved.  When  she  was  twelve  years  of 
age  her  mother  died,  and  hence  the  defectiveness  of  her 
education  and  the  waywardness  and  self-will  of  her  character 
as  a  girl.  Her  quickness  and  originality,  however,  made  ample 
amends  for  these  defects,  though,  perhaps,  not  in  her  own 
opinion.  What  as  a  child  had  been  a  touch  of  obstinacy, 
became  in  the  woman  a  noble  firmness  and  finely  tempered 
decision.  Childish  cunning  ripened  into  a  more  than  ordinary 
penetration  into  dharacter.  Her  idleness  as  a  girl  was  prob- 
ably nothing  but  a  disinclination  to  study  or  work  in  ordinary 
grooves ;  for  as  a  woman  her  thoughtfulness  betrayed  a  deep- 
rooted  habit  of  thinking  that  must  have  been  hers  from  a  very 
early  period. 

At  seventeen  she  had  a  taste  of  the  gayeties  of  London  life,  — 
balls,  theatres,  and  concerts.  Her  father  gave  her  this  oppor- 
tunity freely;  but  it  was  not  to  her  taste.  Her  mind  was  too 
serious  for  such  vanities  to  give  her  any  permanent  or  solid 
satisfaction. 

To  overcome  her  natural  timidity  she  adopted  a  somewhat 
drastic  remedy,  —  she  accustomed  herself  to  stay  in  the  dark 
and  to  ramble  away  into  lonely  and  unoccupied  apartments  in 
her  father's  mansion  at  Earlham.  This  was  before  she  was 
twenty  years  of  age. 

Her  prison  work  began  with  her  visit  to  Newgate  in  Febru- 
ary, 1813,  —  thirteen  years  after  her  marriage  to  Mr.  Joseph 
Fry.  She  was  then  the  mother  of  eight  children. 

After  her  father'*  death,  in  1809,  she  had  become  a  regular 
minister  in  the  Church  to  which  she  belonged.  Thus  she 
looked  upon  hes  mission  to  the  unfortunate  women  in  Newgate 
and  elsewhere  as  part  of  her  public  duties.  For  thirty  years  she 
never  missed  an  opportunity  of  carrying  out  this  truly  philan- 
thropic object.  In  1830  she  extended  her  field  of  labor  to 
foreign  prisons.  The  following  year  she  obtained  an  interview 
with  the  Princess  Victoria,  having  a  hope,  as  she  relates  in  her . 


ELIZABETH    FRY.  IOI 

diary,  of  influencing  the  future  Queen  of  England  on  the  im- 
portant question  of  slavery.  She  thought  the  Princess  "  a 
sweet,  lovely,  and  hopeful  child."  In  1840  she  speaks  of 
another  interview,  and  a  present  for  a  "  refuge "  of  .£50  from 
the  youthful  Queen.  Space  fails  us  to  record  the  thousandth 
part  of  her  eventful  and  interesting  life.  Extended  particulars 
from  her  own  letters  and  diary  may  be  met  with  in  the  excel- 
lent memoir  by  her  daughters.  How  she  won  the  fame  which 
is  so  honorable  to  her  memory ;  how  she  traversed  the  Conti- 
nent, talking  with  all  manner  of  pitiable  people ;  how  she  made 
her  way  into  the  refuges  and  prisons  of  Holland  and  Germany, 
descending  into  the  fetid  air  of  the  jail  at  Amsterdam,  or 
threading  the  dismal  corridors  in  the  infamous  dungeons  of 
Magdeburg;  with  what  untiring  earnestness  she  argued,  in  elo- 
quent fragments  of  French,  with  prison  authorities  at  Potsdam 
and  Berlin,  or  encountered  the  perils  of  the  plague  hospital 
at  Paris ;  ventured  into  the  unsavory  precincts  of  Saint-Lazare, 
and  talked  with  the  aimless  loungers  of  La  Force ;  how  still 
she  journeyed  to  La  Perrache  and  the  Maison  d'Arret  at  Lyons, 
from  Lyons  through  Nismes  to  Marseilles,  and  penetrated 
even  to  the  galleys  of  Toulon,  but  everywhere  bent  on  the  one 
great  errand  of  mercy  to  the  fallen ;  —  all  this  must  be  passed 
over.  Thirty  years  of  such  labors  must  and  do  tell  upon  the 
condition  of  the  places  which,  like  Howard,  she  endeavored  to 
improve.  To  the  influence  of  her  work  let  us  add  the  spirit 
which  now  pervades  the  upper  ranks  of  society ;  and  we  shall 
see  not  only  how  great  is  the  cause  for  thankfulness  for  the 
past,  but  how  wide  also  is  the  ground  for  hopefulness  in  the 
years  to  come. 


102  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 


BISHOP    KEN. 

[BORN  1637.    DIED  1710.] 

the  3Oth  of  June,  1688,  King  James  II.  had  been  review- 
ing  his  troops,  in  number  16,000,  on  Hounslow  Heath.  The 
day  was  hot,  and  he  had  retired  into  Lord  Feversham's  tent, 
when  an  express  arrived  with  news  of  great  importance.  The 
King  was  greatly  disturbed  on  hearing  it,  and  left  directly  for 
London.  Hardly  had  he  quitted  the  camp  when  a  deafening 
shout  was  heard.  It  was  the  soldiers'  extravagant  expression 
of  tumultuous  joy;  and  the  mortified  sovereign  learned  from 
Feversham  that  they  were  shouting  because  the  bishops  were 
acquitted.  "Do  you  call  that  nothing?"  said  James,  and  then 
repeated  what  he  had  said  when  the  news  of  the  acquittal  first 
reached  him :  "  So  much  the  worse  for  them !  "  It  was  not 
clear  for  whom  it  was  to  be  worse.  Most  of  those  around  him 
seemed  to  think  it  would  be  better  for  everybody.  Bonfires 
were  being  kindled,  volleys  of  artillery  fired,  bells  were  pealing, 
and  horsemen  spurring  along  every  road  to  carry  over  the 
country  the  joyful  news.  The  seven  bishops  were  regarded  as 
confessors  who  had  exposed  their  lives  in  defence  of  the  rights 
of  conscience,  to  vindicate  the  law  and  resist  the  craft  and  des- 
potism of  the  Crown.  The  Declaration  of  Indulgence,  for 
refusing  to  publish  which  in  their  dioceses  they  had  been  tried, 
superseded  the  law  by  royal  decree,  overthrew  the  British  Consti- 
tution, carried  the  dispensing  power  to  an  intolerable  length, 
and,  under  pretence  of  religious  toleration,  went  far  towards 
forcing  on  the  English  people  a  religion  to  which  they  were  in- 
tensely averse.  The  defence  of  the  national  liberty  was  for  the 
time  intrusted,  by  an  extraordinary  combination  of  circum- 
stances, not  to  generals  or  statesmen,  but  to  seven  men  whose 
only  weapons  were  their  pastoral  staves.  If  they  had  failed  in 


BISHOP     KEN. 


BISHOP   KEN.  105 

courage  and  resolution,  their  clergy  would  have  felt  themselves 
abandoned,  and  the  encroachments  of  the  Stuart  monarch  would 
have  passed  all  bounds.  If  they  —  with  Bishop  Ken,  be  it  re- 
membered, among  them  —  had  quailed  before  their  duty  in  the 
meeting  at  Lambeth  on  May  18,  1688,  they  would  not,  under 
the  presidency  of  Archbishop  Sancroft,  have  drawn  up  the 
petition  to  the  King  in  which  they  maintained  that  the  Declara- 
tion of  Indulgence,  which  they  were  unable  in  conscience  to 
order  to  be  read  in  churches,  was  "  founded  on  such  a  dispens- 
ing power  as  had  been  often  declared  illegal  in  Parliament,  and 
particularly  in  the  years  1662  and  1672  and  in  the  beginning  of 
his  Majesty's  reign." 

If  we  are  calling  Bishop  Ken  to  our  readers'  affectionate 
remembrance  to-day,  it  is  because  his  name  is  affixed  to  this 
document,  which  proved  in  its  results  the  cause  of  England's 
deliverance  from  the  peril  of  her  liberty,  ecclesiastical  and  civil. 
He  was  by  far  the  most  outspoken  of  the  six  bishops  who 
stood  before  the  King  that  night  at  ten  o'clock.  "  Sire,"  he 
said,  "  I  hope  you  will  give  that  liberty  to  us  which  you  allow 
to  all  mankind."  He  and  his  brethren  disclaimed  all  disloyalty, 
but  they  would  obey  God  rather  than  men.  So  they  were  dis- 
missed with  every  mark  of  the  royal  displeasure.  The  next 
day  was  Sunday,  and  the  curiosity  and  excitement  were  great. 
Would  the  clergy  succumb  and  read  the  Declaration?  Only 
four  in  London  read  it,  and  not  more  than  two  hundred  in 
the  whole  country.  Those  who  did  so  were  despised  for  their 
pusillanimity,  and  the  congregations  quitted  the  churches  the 
moment  they  began  to  read. 

On  June  8  the  bishops  were  summoned  to  appear  at  the 
council  board.  Every  effort  was  made  to  intimidate  them  and 
to  cause  them  to  become  their  own  accusers.  They  were  re- 
quired to  enter  into  recognizances,  which  they  refused.  A  war- 
rant was  therefore  made  out  against  them,  directing  the  lieutenant 
of  the  Tower  to  keep  them  in  safe  custody.  They  passed  down 
the  river  in  a  barge,  the  people  lining  the  banks  all  the  way 
and  kneeling  for  their  blessing.  Their  prison  was  attended  like 
a  royal  court.  On  the  I5th  they  were  brought  up  to  Westmin- 


io6 


OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 


ster,  and  indicted  for  having  written,  "  under  pretence  of  a  peti- 
tion, a  certain  false,  pernicious,  and  scandalous  libel."  In  the 
interval  between  the  commitment  and  the  trial  the  greatest 
efforts  were  made  to  induce  Ken  and  his  episcopal  brethren  to 
submit  and  ask  pardon,  but  they  all  stood  firm.  On  the  day  of 
the  trial  half  the  peers  of  England  attended  in  the  court.  Their 
counsel  denounced  the  King's  dispensing  power  as  illegal,  and 
showed  the  absurdity  of  designating  a  petition  privately  pre- 
sented to  the  King  as  a  malicious  libel.  The  judges  were 
divided  on  the  question  of  its  being  a  libel;  but  the  jury,  after 
remaining  locked  up  all  night,  came  into  court  at  ten  o'clock 
on  the  morning  of  June  30,  and  the  foreman  pronounced  a  ver- 
dict of  Not  Guilty.  The  effect  of  this  decision  on  the  city,  the 
camp,  the  King,  and  the  nation  has  been  already  described. 
The  portraits  of  the  bishops  were  eagerly  sought  for  and  care- 
fully cherished.  A  medal  was  struck  bearing  the  effigy  of  the 
Archbishop  on  one  side  and  of  the  Bishop  of  London  and  six 
other  bishops,  including  Ken,  on  the  reverse.  Of  these  none 
was  so  remarkable,  none  so  much  beloved,  respected,  and 
admired,  as  he  of  whose  life  and  character  we  must  now  add 
a  few  particulars. 

Thomas  Ken,  Bishop  of  Bath  and  Wells,  lived  through  two 
civil  wars  and  two  revolutions.  He  was  twelve  years  old  when 
King  Charles  I.  was  brought  to  the  block,  and  twenty-four 
when,  on  the  anniversary  of  "  the  royal  martyrdom,"  Cromwell, 
after  having  governed  England  as  "  his  Highness  the  Lord 
Protector,"  was  dragged  from  his  grave,  his  body  suspended  on 
a  gibbet,  beheaded,  and  buried  again  at  Tyburn.  Though 
educated  during  the  Commonwealth,  Ken  early  imbibed  the 
principles  of  "  Church  and  King,"  for  which  he  afterwards 
suffered  loss  and  deprivation.  Educated  at  Winchester  and 
New  College,  Oxford,  he  became  a  fellow  of  Winchester  Col- 
lege ;  and  when  Charles  H.  had  reigned  as  king  about  seven 
years,  he  was  presented  to  the  rectory  of  Brixton,  in  the  Isle  of 
Wight,  and  a  prebendal  stall  in  the  Church  of  Westminster. 
We  will  not  now  follow  him  to  Holland,  where  he  was  chaplain 
to  the  Princess  of  Orange,  or  to  Tangier,  whither  he  accom- 


BISHOP    KEN.  107 

panied  Lord  Dartmouth.  It  is  more  to  our  purpose  to  remem- 
ber how  he  stood  by  the  bedside  of  the  dying  monarch,  and 
exhorted  him  to  repent  sincerely  and  receive  the  holy  com- 
munion at  the  hands  of  the  bishops  of  his  Church.  Of  all  the 
prelates  he  was  the  one  whom  the  King  liked  best;  but  upon 
this  point  he  was  not  able  to  prevail  with  his  royal  master. 
He  attended  also  on  the  unfortunate  Duke  of  Monmouth  in 
his  last  hours,  and  earnestly  sought  to  induce  him  to  meet  his 
fate  in  a  becoming  spirit,  and  acknowledge  that  his  resistance 
to  the  government  of  James  II.  was  sinful.  But  here  also  the 
good  bishop  failed  of  success.  Nowhere  does  he  appear  to 
greater  advantage  than  in  the  jails  of  the  West  of  England, 
exhorting  and  consoling  the  captives  taken  in  Monmouth's 
train,  whose  religious  and  political  principles  he  abhorred. 
Their  coarse  and  scanty  prison  fare  was  improved  by  one  whose 
beloved  cathedral  they  had  defaced  and  desecrated.  In  vain 
he  pleaded  for  the  victims  of  Jeffrey's  "  bloody  assize,"  and 
described  in  pathetic  language  the  deplorable  state  of  his  dio- 
cese. The  whole  air  of  Somersetshire,  he  said,  was  tainted 
with  death.  But  James  was  inexorable;  and  not  the  least 
insane  of  his  follies  was  that  of  alienating  such  a  friend  of 
"  monarchical  principles  as  the  Bishop  of  Bath  and  Wells.  It 
was  against  all  his  wishes  and  instincts  that  Bishop  Ken  felt 
himself  constrained  to  join  in  the  consultation  of  bishops  at 
Lambeth  and  in  their  petition  to  the  King.  Loyalty  with  him 
was  little  short  of  a  passion ;  but  the  excesses  of  the  Crown 
were  so  outrageous  that  even  every  moderate  Roman  Catholic 
deplored  in  secret  the  frantic  conduct  of  the  Government, 
which  Protestants  openly  denounced  and  resisted.  Yet  this 
champion  of  England's  liberties  in  Church  and  State,  when 
James  had  been  driven  from  his  kingdom  and  a  new  sovereign 
had  been  called  to  the  throne,  could  not  bring  himself  to  take 
the  oaths  of  allegiance  to  William  of  Orange.  James  II.,  with 
all  his  overriding  of  the  law,  was  still  in  his  eyes  the  lawful 
king;  and  "not  for  wealth,"  as  Lord  Macaulay  wrote,  "not 
for  a  palace,  not  for  a  peerage,  would  he  run  the  risk  of  ever 
feeling  the  torments  of  remorse." 


108  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Being  ejected  from  his  see  in  1689,  Ken  retired  to  Longleat, 
now  the  residence  of  the  Marquis  of  Bath,  and  then  owned  by 
one  of  his  ancestors,  Lord  Weymouth.  Here  he  composed 
many  of  those  devout  and  affecting  hymns,  with  two  of  which 
we  are  so  familiar,  the  Morning  and  the  Evening  Hymn,  — 
"  Awake,  my  soul,  and  with  the  sun,"  and  "  Glory  to  thee,  my 
God,  this  night."  Not  a  morning  breaks,  not  an  evening 
closes,  but  tens  of  thousands  of  Christian  souls  commend  them- 
selves to  the  Divine  Keeper  and  Guardian  in  these  simple  and 
sacred  strains.  It  was  at  Longleat  that  the  Bishop  rested  when 
on  his  way  "  to  the  Bath  "  for  relief  from  an  illness  with  which 
he  had  been  seized  at  Sherborne.  Here  he  took  to  his  bed, 
and  here  breathed  his  last,  desiring  to  be  buried  "  in  the 
churchyard  of  the  nearest  parish  within  his  diocese,  under  the 
east  window  of  the  chancel,  just  at  sunrising."  The  condition 
was  fulfilled,  and  Lord  Houghton  has  described  the  monument 
over  his  remains :  - 

"  A  basket:work  where  bars  are  bent,  — 

Iron  in  place  of  osier  ; 
And  shapes  about  that  represent 
A  mitre  and  a  crosier." 

No  one  resisted  the  despotism  of  the  last  Stuart  king  with 
more  effect  than  Bishop  Ken,  because  his  character  stood  so 
high  for  conscientious  loyalty.  The  first  rays  of  the  morning 
sun  do  not,  as  he  desired  and  intended,  glint  across  the  place  of 
his  sepulture ;  but  the  light  of  history  will  never  fail  to  shed  on 
his  memory  a  beam  of  hearty  approval  and  honest  praise. 
Happily  the  Churchmen  of  the  present  day  are  seldom 
brought  into  such  straits  as  he,  —  their  path  of  duty  is  clearer 
and  pleasanter;  nor  do  religious  persons  now,  like  the  fanatics 
of  former  times,  think  it  a  sacred  duty  to  persecute,  their 
neighbors.  We  have  not  so  learned  Christ. 


REGINALD     HEBER. 


REGINALD   HEBER.  Ill 


REGINALD    HEBER. 

[BORN  1783.    DIED  1826.] 

AMONG  the  benefactors  of  men,  spiritually  or  temporally, 
Heber  is  one  who  will  command  respect  from  men  of 
diverse  creeds  and  countries,  the  learned  and  the  ignorant,  old 
and  young,  rich  and  poor;  for  such  was  his  power  in  manner, 
conversation,  and  unassuming  kindliness,  that  he  gathered  uni- 
versal respect,  love,  and  veneration. 

Descended  from  an  ancient  Yorkshire  family,  he  was  born  at 
Malpas,  in  Cheshire,  on  April  21,  1783.  Early  in  life  he 
showed  indications  of  the  Christian  temper  and  intellectual  gifts 
by  which  he  was  in  after  life  distinguished.  Of  the  former,  one 
anecdote  will  be  enough.  Travelling  with  his  mother  across 
the  wild  mountainous  country  west  of  Craven  in  very  tempestu- 
ous weather,  she  became  alarmed  at  the  fury  of  the  storm ;  but 
Reginald,  sitting  on  her  knee,  said,  "  Do  not  be  afraid,  mamma; 
God  will  take  care  of  us." 

At  eight  years  of  age  he  was  sent  to  the  grammar  school  of 
Whitchurch,  having  learned  the  rudiments  of  Latin  from  his 
father.  At  thirteen  he  was  put  under  a  tutor  for  preparation 
for  Oxford,  and  at  seventeen  years  of  age  he  entered  Brazenose 
College.  At  this  seat  of  learning  he  "  soon  became,  beyond  all 
question  or  comparison,  the  most  distinguished  student  of  his 
time."  Here,  as  elsewhere,  he  became  a  centre  of  deep, 
earnest,  and  spiritual  life,  so  that  every  one  with  whom  he  was 
brought  in  contact  derived  a  salutary  influence.  In  his  first 
year  he  gained  the  prize  for  Latin  verse  by  the  "  Carmen  Secu- 
lare,"  and  in  1803  for  English  verse  by  his  "  Palestine,"  which 
at  once  gave  Heber  a  place  among  English  poets.  In  the  fol- 
lowing year  his  father,  whose  conversation  had  great  influence 
8 


112  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

on  his  children,  died.  In  1805  Heber  took  his  degree,  and  was 
elected  Fellow  of  All  Souls.  In  the  same  year  he  set  out  with  his 
friend,  Mr.  John  Thornton,  for  a  tour  in  the  North  of  Europe, 
Sweden,  Norway,  Russia,  and  thence  to  the  Crimea,  returning 
through  Germany  and  Austria  to  England.  He  found  a  field 
little  trodden,  and  in  his  correspondence  exhibits  great  acumen. 
During  his  travels  he  kept  an  accurate  journal,  extracts  from 
which  were  afterwards  printed  as  notes  to  the  travels  of  Dr.  E. 
D.  Clarke.  They  are  written  in  the  animated  and  picturesque 
style  which  rendered  in  after  years  his  "  Indian  Journal  "  so  fas- 
cinating and  readable.  Shortly  after  his  return  he  began  to 
prepare  for  holy  orders.  He  had  designed  a  work  of  "  collect- 
ing, arranging,  and  illustrating  all  of  ancient  and  modern  litera- 
ture which  could,  unfold  the  history  and  throw  light  on  the 
present  state  of  Scythia,  —  that  region  of  mystery  and  fable,  — 
that  source  whence  eleven  times  in  the  history  of  man  the  living 
clouds  of  war  have  been  breathed  over  all  the  nations  of  the 
South."  But  now  he  determined  to  "  apply  himself  wholly  to 
this  one  thing,"  and,  however  fascinating  the  above  plan  was 
to  a  mind  constituted  as  Heber's,  it  was  firmly  renounced  and 
abandoned.  About  this  period  he  took  his  degree  of  M.A., 
and  soon  after  married  Amelia,  daughter  of  William  Shipley, 
Dean  of  St.  Asaph,  and  was  settled  in  the  living  of  Hodnet, 
Shropshire.  In  this  parish  he  spent  fifteen  years.  Here  he,  who 
might  have  won  the  highest  fame  in  the  literary  world,  devoted 
himself  to  what  the  world  might  esteem  the  humbler  duties  of  a 
Christian  pastor.  He  was  happy  in  his  visitation  of  the  sick 
and  afflicted.  Daily  he  went  among  his  people,  advising  the 
perplexed,  comforting  the  distressed,  relieving  the  needy,  mak- 
ing peace  among  those  at  strife.  When  disease  spread,  he,  at 
the  hazard  of  his  life,  remained  firm  at  his  post.  In  society  his 
character  was  as  attractive  as  in  the  parish.  "  His  talents 
might  have  made  him  proud ;  but  he  was  humble-minded  as  a 
child,  —  eager  to  call  forth  the  intellectual  stores  of  others 
rather  than  to  display  his  own,  —  equally  willing  to  reason  with 
the  wise  or  take  a  share  in  the  innocent  gayeties  of  a  winter's 
fireside.  The  attentions  he  received  might  have  made  him  self- 


REGINALD    HEBER.  113 

ish,  but  his  own  inclinations  were  ever  the  last  he  consulted  ;  in- 
deed, of  all  the  features  in  his  character,  this  was,  perhaps,  the 
most  prominent,  that  in  him  self  did  not  seem  to  be  denied  or 
mortified,  so  much  as  to  be  forgotten.  .  .  .  That  he  was  some- 
times deceived  in  his  favorable  estimate  of  mankind,  it  would  be 
vain  to  deny;  such  a  guileless,  unsuspicious  singleness  of  heart 
as  his  cannot  always  be  proof  against  cunning.  But  if  he  had 
not  this  worldly  knowledge,  he  wanted  it,  perhaps,  in  common 
with  most  men  of  genius  and  virtue ;  the  '  wisdom  of  the  ser- 
pent '  was  almost  the  only  wisdom  in  which  he  did  not  abound." 

In  1812  he  began  a  "  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,"  and  published 
a  volume  of  poems.  In  1815  he  was  appointed  to  deliver  the 
Bampton  Lectures  at  Oxford,  and  chose  for  his  subject  "  The 
Personality  and  Office  of  the  Christian  Comforter."  These  lec- 
tures were  much  admired  for  their  research  and  illustration.  In 
1822  he  published  a  life  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  with  a  review  of  his 
writings.  A  reviewer  says  of  this  work,  it  is  "  of  maturer  knowl- 
edge and  more  chastened  taste  than  his  lectures,  and  peculiarly 
interesting  from  the  evident  sympathy  with  which  he  contem- 
plated the  career  of  that  heavenly-minded  man,  with  whom, 
indeed,  he  had  much  in  common." 

In  the  same  year  he  was  elected  preacher  at  Lincoln's  Inn, 
where  among  his  hearers  were  men  distinguished  in  public 
life  or  in  religious  and  philanthropical  endeavors.  In  the 
following  year  a  wider  field  of  usefulness  was  opened  up  for 
him  by  the  death  of  Bishop  Middleton,  of  Calcutta.  Severe 
was  the  conflict  which  now  ensued  in  Heber's  mind,  thinking 
not  of  himself  but  others,  between  the  love  of  country  and 
friends,  his  own  modesty  which  made  him  distrustful  of  himself, 
and  the  conviction  that  this  was  a  call  from  God,  and  that  to 
refuse  would  be  to  be  deaf  to  the  Divine  voice.  Twice  he 
refused,  but  recalled  his  refusal,  and  finally  accepted  the  office 
with  views  and  feelings  of  the  deepest  and  most  conscientious 
nature.  "  In  making  this  decision,"  he  writes  to  Mr.  Thornton, 
"  I  hope  and  believe  that  I  have  been  guided  by  conscientious 
feelings.  I  can  at  least  say  that  I  have  prayed  to  God  most 
heartily  to  show  me  the  path  of  duty  and  to  give  me  grace  to 


114  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

follow  it,  and  the  tranquillity  of  mind  which  I  now  feel  (very 
different  from  that  which  I  experienced  after  having  declined  it) 
induces  me  to  hope  that  I  have  his  blessing  and  approbation." 

Having  been  made  a  D.  D.  by  the  University  of  Oxford,  he 
returned  to  Hodnet  to  prepare  for  his  departure  to  India.  The 
fashion  of  presenting  testimonials  was  not  the  custom  of  those 
days ;  but  rich  and  poor  united  to  give  to  him  whom  they  so 
deeply  loved  a  memento  of  their  affection  and  respect. 

He  was  consecrated  at  Lambeth  on  the  ist  of  June  (Ascen- 
sion Day),  preached  his  last  sermon  in  England  on  the  8th,  on 
the  1 6th  embarked  on  board  the  "  Thomas  Grenville,"  East- 
Indiaman,  and  on  the  iSth  sailed  from  Deal.  On  board  ship 
he  officiated  as  chaplain,  spending  all  his  leisure  in  assiduous 
study  of  both  Hindostanee  and  Persian.  To  him  the  circum- 
scribed circumstances  of  a  sea  voyage  brought  no  ennui.  He 
found  work  and  did  it.  On  the  3d  of  October  the  vessel  was 
safely  anchored  in  the  Sangor  Roads.  "  The  first  sight  of 
India,"  he  writes,  "  has  little  which  can  please  even  those  who 
have  been  three  months  at  sea.  The  coast  is  so  flat  as  only  to 
be  distinguished,  when  very  near  it,  by  the  tall  cocoa-trees 
which  surround  the  villages."  On  the  7th  he  left  Diamond 
Harbor  (interesting  as  being  the  first  possession  of  the  East 
India  Company  in  Bengal)  on  board  the  Government  yacht, 
and  on  the  evening  of  the  roth  he  landed  in  Calcutta.  On  his 
arrival  he  found  a  vast  accumulation  of  business  awaiting  his 
attention.  With  his  usual  energy  and  unwearying  industry  he 
applied  himself  to  it.  But  by  systematic  working  he  found 
time  to  become  acquainted  with  the  operations  of  every 
charitable  institution  and  advocate  the  claims  of  every  good 
work.  He  consecrated,  soon  after  his  arrival,  the  churches  of 
St.  Stephen,  Dum-Dum,  and  St.  James,  Calcutta. 

In  his  work  he  was  brought  into  contact  with  men  of  diverse 
opinions  and  beliefs.  He  expresses  his  judgment  in  the  follow- 
ing words :  — 

"  This  is,  on  the  whole,  a  lively,  intelligent,  and  interesting  people. 
Of  the  upper  classes  a  considerable  proportion  learn  our  language, 
read  our  books  and  our  newspapers,  and  show  a  desire  to  court  our 


REGINALD    HEBER.  11$ 

society ;  the  peasants  are  anxious  to  learn  English,  and  though  certainly 
very  few  of  them  have  as  yet  embraced  Christianity,  I  do  not  think 
their  reluctance  is  more  than  might  be  expected  in  any  country  where 
a  system  so  entirely  different  from  that  previously  professed  was  offered, 
—  offered,  too,  by  those  of  whom,  as  their  conquerors,  they  may  well 
entertain  considerable  jealousy." 

On  caste  he  observes :  "  The  institution  of  caste  hardens  their 
hearts  against  each  other  to  a  degree  which  is  often  most  re- 
volting." His  whole  energies  were  directed  to  the  great  work, 
the  evangelization  of  India.  He  travelled  extensively,  planting 
churches  and  encouraging  missionaries.  Of  his  route  through 
the  upper  provinces,  between  Calcutta  and  Bombay,  a  full 
narrative  has  been  published  in  two  volumes.  He  also  visited 
the  Deccan,  Ceylon,  etc.,  carrying  out  with  characteristic  zeal 
the  great  object  of  his  mission.  Success  in  some  degree  even  in 
life  crowned  his  efforts ;  but  the  fruit  of  his  work  was  seen  after 
his  death,  which  so  suddenly  put  an  end  to  the  personal  carrying 
out  of  many  projects  for  the  benefit  and  welfare  of  India. 

A  very  interesting  account  of  his  work  on  the  day  of  his 
death  appears  in  the  journal  of  Mr.  Robinson,  his  chaplain. 
He  was  found  dead  in  his  bath,  evidently  from  apoplexy,  April  3, 
1826. 

At  sunrise  on  the1  following  morning  the  remains  of  the 
Bishop  were  interred  on  the  north  side  of  the  communion-table 
in  St.  John's  Church,  in  the  very  place  where  but  a  few  hours 
before  he  had  blessed  the  people.  The  civil  and  military 
powers  united  to  show  every  mark  of  esteem  and  love.  The 
natives,  without  respect  of  creed,  Hindoos  and  Mahometans 
as  well  as  Christians,  formed  a  vast  concourse  along  the  road 
leading  to  the  church,  that  they  might  catch  a  glimpse  of  his 
bier.  His  name,  as  that  of  a  man  endowed  with  singular  gifts, 
and  influenced  with  a  sincere  desire  to  benefit  his  fellow-men, 
had  become  known  to  them,  and  had  excited  their  reverence 
and  regard. 

The  death  of  Heber  excited  a  feeling  of  sorrow  in  India  more 
widely  spread  than  had  ever  b'een  known  before.  Meetings 
were  held  in  various  places  throughout  the  three  Presidencies, 


Il6  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

in  which  the  highest  joined  with  persons  of  every  rank  and 
condition  to  deplore  his  death  and  devise  means  for  honoring 
his  memory.  Especially  was  this  the  case  at  Madras,  where 
natives  and  Europeans  —  without  distinction  of  caste,  color,  or 
religion  —  united  in  raising  a  memorial.  All  felt  that  person- 
ally they  had  lost  a  friend,  a  benefactor,  and  a  father.  Memo- 
rials were  raised  in  several  of  the  Indian  churches  and  in  his 
own  beloved  Hodnet.  In  Bishop's  College,  Calcutta,  scholar- 
ships were  founded.  A  beautiful  monument  was  erected  in 
St.  George's  Church,  Madras,  and  another  in  St.  Paul's  Cathe- 
dral, London. 

Bishop  Heber  had  not  quite  completed  his  forty-third  year 
at  the  time  of  his  death.  "  His  sun  was  still  in  its  meridian 
power,  and  its  warmth  most  genial,  when  it  was  so  suddenly 
eclipsed." 

He  gave  early  indications  of  that  love  for  the  classics,  in 
the  study  of  which  he  afterwards  gained  such  high  honors. 
At  the  age  of  seven  he  translated  Phaedrus  into  English  verse. 
With  a  natural  thirst  fof  knowledge,  a  strong  memory  to  retain 
what  he  had  learned,  and  a  glowing  fancy,  he  combined  also 
that  industry  and  application  necessary  to  develop  the  other 
faculties  into  important  results.  Not  possessing  originality  in 
the  same  degree,  the  classics  became  his  models.  For  the 
exact  sciences  he  had  not  the  same  relish.  Logic — at  least 
as  unfolded  by  Aldrich  —  he  even  disliked.  He  had  a  fine 
taste  for  drawing  and  natural  history.  He  wrote  a  history  of 
the  Cossacks  as  a  contribution  to  the  "  Quarterly  Review."  As 
an  author  he  is  most  popular  by  his  hymns  and  sacred  pieces. 
These  breathe  a  strain  of  the  most  exalted  piety  and  Christian 
devotion,  and  thus  accurately  reflect  himself.  But  it  is  in  the 
Christian  pastor  of  Hodnet,  and  the  apostolic  Bishop  of  Cal- 
cutta, that  Heber  is  especially  entitled  to  our  regard,  and  calls 
forth  our  admiration  for  his  devotion  to  his  work,  his  energy 
when  once  the  choice  was  made.  No  half-hearted  endeavor 
did  he  put  forth ;  but  what  his  hand  found  to  do  he  did  with  all 
his  might,  being  animated  with  the  highest  enthusiasm,  —  that 
of  the  Christian. 


WILLIAM     PENN. 


WILLIAM    PENN.  119 


WILLIAM    PENN. 

[BORN  1644.    DIED  1718.] 

WILLIAM  PENN  was  born  in  London  in  1644.  He  was 
the  son  of  Admiral  Sir  William  Penn,  a  descendant  from 
an  ancient  line  of  ancestry  in  Buckinghamshire,  and  distin- 
guished as  a  naval  commander  under  the  Commonwealth  and 
afterwards  under  the  Government  of  Charles  II.  Admiral  Penn 
was  warmly  attached  to  the  cause  of  Charles,  and  entered  into  a 
secret  correspondence  with  the  object  of  placing  him  on  the 
throne  ;  but  being  detected  he  was  for  a  time  thrown  into  prison. 
Confinement,  however,  had  no  effect  in  deterring  him  from  his 
plans  and  intentions.  Immediately  on  his  release  he  entered 
into  union  with  Monk  and  others ;  and  they  finally  achieved 
their  objects,  for  which  royal  favors  were  abundantly  bestowed 
and  as  eagerly  accepted  by  one  of  the  most  vain  and  ambitious 
men  of  the  time. 

Admiral  Penn  had  strong  resolves  for  his  ambition.  Himself 
already  on  the  ladder  of  fame,  having  acquired  wealth  as  well 
as  powerful  friends  and  allies,  he  sought  hard  for  additional 
royal  favors,  all  of  which  in  the  extravagance  of  anticipation  he 
hoped  one  day  to  heap  upon  his  son.  William  Penn,  however, 
proved  himself  incapable  of  impression  under  the  projected 
charm  of  such  a  brilliant  career.  He  was  inclined  to  be  serious, 
fond  of  meditation  and  retirement,  and  exhibited  a  manifest 
objection  to  entertain  the  proposals  and  designs  of  his  father. 
This  arose  from  an  independence  of  mind  and  depth  of  thought 
which  in  after  life  proved  to  be  the  basis  of  his  remarkable, 
manly,  and  Christian  character.  His  education  commenced  at 
Chigwell  Grammar  School ;  subsequently  he  was  removed  to  a 
private  school  on  Tower  Hill,  and  a  special  tutor  was  retained 
for  him  in  his  father's  house.  His  progress  in  learning  was 


120  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

rapid,  and  at  fifteen  he  entered  Christ  Church,  Oxford,  where 
he  was  associated  with  Robert  Spencer,  afterwards  Earl  of  Sun- 
derland,  and  the  celebrated  John  Locke.  Here  the  general 
seriousness  of  his  deportment  was  shaken  for  a  time  by  the  in- 
fluence of  surrounding  associations ;  but  he  nevertheless  con- 
tinued his  studies  with  unabated  vigor,  by  which  his  taste  for 
languages,  history,  and  theology  was  considerably  enlarged, 
and  his  mental  powers  were  developed.  He  was  conspicuous 
for  force  of  argument  on  theological  subjects  and  strong  oppo- 
sition to  the  popish  practices  of  the  day,  and  at  this  period  was 
probably  influenced  by  a  new  form  of  belief,  from  which  it  may 
be  said  his  real  life  in  all  its  phases  began.  He  renounced 
the  pompous  and  imposing  ritual  to  which  the  university 
commanded  obedience,  and,  with  several  others,  preferred  the 
simple  and  unostentatious  mode  of  worship  of  the  despised 
Quakers.  Threats  and  persecution  followed.  The  academical 
gown  was  laid  aside ;  an  order  of  Charles  for  its  restoration  was 
contemptuously  disregarded ;  and  the  climax  of  rebellion  was 
reached  by  the  non-comformist  few  tearing  the  badge  from  the 
backs  of  the  more  compliant  graduates.  This  act,  in  itself  to 
be  condemned,  was,  however,  the  embodiment  of  a  power  yet 
in  its  infancy,  which  was  destined  to  achieve  greater  victories, 
and  tear  away  the  hideous  outgrowths  of  a  superstitious  and 
sophisticated  age.  Penn  and  his  associates  in  the  schism  were 
locked  out  of  the  university.  By  this  act  the  State  religion  lost 
an  ardent  worker  and  an  able  advocate ;  while  the  Christian 
Church  gained  a  sincere  exponent  of  the  truth,  and  probably 
the  most  powerful  enemy  to  all  that  is  adverse  to  the  worship 
of  the  New  Covenant.  The  disgrace  which  the  son  thus 
brought  upon  himself  mortified  and  chagrined  his  father,  and 
William  Penn  was  banished  from  his  paternal  home.  The 
Admiral  intended  that  his  son  should  become  a  great  man ; 
but  he  little  knew  how  in  the  highest  sense  this  would  be 
accomplished,  while  his  own  plans  in  the  same  direction  would 
be  set  aside. 

William   Penn  retired  to  France.     He  was  received    at  the 
Court  of  Louis  XIV.,  but  still  continued  his  intellectual  studies, 


WILLIAM    PENN.  121 

and  acquired  considerable  knowledge  by  European  travel.  On 
his  return  he  was  put  to  the  study  of  the  law;  but  the  immedi- 
ate outbreak  of  the  great  plague  caused  him  to  alter  his  plans, 
while  he  became  awfully  impressed  with  the  solemnity  of  the 
visitation,  by  which  thousands  were  suddenly  snatched  from 
business  and  the  cares  and  whirl  of  giddy  life.  These  impres- 
sions were  doubtless  confirmed  subsequently  when  attending  in 
Cork  a  meeting  of  Friends,  at  which  Thomas  Loe,  a  minister 
of  the  society,  was  present,  and  whose  meeting  William  Penn 
attended  at  Oxford. 

Admiral  Penn  soon  learned  that  his  son  had  turned  Quaker. 
He  was  summoned  home,  and  his  father  demanded  an  explana- 
tion ;  but  all  that  could  be  done  was  without  avail.  William 
Penn's  mind  was  irrevocably  fixed,  his  Christian  principles  es- 
tablished, and  from  these  he  resolved  never  to  swerve.  He  was 
again  expelled  from  his  father's  home,  and,  adopting  the  simple 
attire  of  a  despised  Quaker  travelling  in  the  ministry,  visited 
various  places  preaching  the  Word.  He  had  now  laid  aside  the 
gay  trappings  and  arms  of  the  period,  and  had  taken  up  the* 
sword  of  the  Spirit,  with  the  helmet  of  salvation  and  the  shield 
of  faith ;  he  had  spurned  a  ducal  coronet  and  accepted  by  faith 
a  princely  crown. 

The  life  and  manner  of  William  Penn  were  wholly  changed. 
Realizing  the  priceless  value  of  salvation,  and  fully  alive  to  the 
high  and  noble  privileges  which  follow  on  the  Christian  life,  he 
resolved  to  devote  himself  henceforth  to  the  work  of  spread- 
ing the  light  to  the  benighted  thousands  around.  The  corrupt 
state  of  the  Church  and  the  dogmatism  of  its  blind  followers 
fostered  a  continued  line  of  persecution  against  all  who  dared  to 
think  differently  on  spiritual  matters ;  hence  thousands  of  Dis- 
senters were  thrown  into  prison  to  end  their  days  in  filth  and  a 
poisoned  atmosphere,  and  in  protracted  suffering  and  even 
starvation.  William  Penn,  with  others  prominent  in  raising 
the  voice  of  truth  against  error  and  oppression,  became  a 
sufferer,  and  spent  many  years  of  his  life  within  prison  walls  for 
conscience'  sake.  But  here  he  was  not  idle.  His  busy  brain 
and  ready  will  stood  him  in  good  need;  for  he  occupied  his 


122  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

time  in  diligently  writing  and  issuing  the  results  of  his  labors, 
either  as  trenchant  and  unanswerable  replies  to  his  opponents, 
or  in  the  tender,  loving  appeals  to  his  coworkers  and  those 
whose  salvation  he  earnestly  longed  and  prayed  for.  His 
literary  productions  at  these  times  were  numerous ;  among 
them  may  be  particularly  named,  "  No  Cross,  No  Crown," 
which  at  the  present  day  is  much  valued  by  believers. 

Unsettled  as  these  times  were,  mainly  by  reason  of  the  fierce 
opposition  of  those  whose  mission,  if  rightly  performed,  should 
have  been  the  preaching  of  peace,  it  was  impossible  for  a  man 
of  William  Penn's  character  and  feelings  to  escape  the  bitter 
persecution  of  those  whose  acts  he  questioned  and  condemned. 
As  a  leader  he  was  a  marked  man,  and  always  one  of  the  first 
to  be  roughly  handled  and  carried  to  prison.  His  sufferings 
were  only  exceeded  by  those  who  were  led  to  the  stake ;  yet 
in  patience  was  his  soul  preserved.  The  Bishop  of  London 
sent  him  word  he  must  either  recant  or  die  in  prison.  To  this 
he  only  smiled  and  quietly  said,  "  They  are  mistaken  in  me.  I 
value  not  their  threats ;  I  will  weary  out  their  malice ;  my 
prison  shall  be  my  grave  before  I  will  budge  a  jot,  for  I  owe 
my  conscience  to  no  man."  The  account  of  his  trial  at  the  Old 
Bailey  in  1670,  and  his  defence,  is  one  of  the  most  interesting 
records  of  events  touching  the  persecution  of  the  Friends.  Of 
the  results  of  this  trial  it  has  been  said,  "  It  established  a  great 
truth,  that  .unjust  laws  are  powerless  when  used  against  an 
upright  people." 

From  this  period  William  Penn  assumes  a  more  prominent 
and  useful  character.  While  he  suffered  he  was  not  unmindful 
of  the  pangs  of  others,  and  his  spirit,  vexed  and  grieved, 
yearned  for  the  day  of  deliverance.  His  belief  was  that,  in 
common  with  all  Friends,  and  as  it  had  been  handed  down  to 
them  by  the  simple-hearted  Christians  of  previous  ages,  man 
should  have  free  and  unfettered  liberty  to  worship  God  as  he 
was  led  to  think  best.  On  this  understanding  he  pleaded  the 
same  toleration  to  the  Roman  Catholics,  and  for  it  was  de- 
nounced a  Jesuit  in  disguise,  which  had  the  effect  of  producing 
a  special  form  of  persecution.  For  a  time  William  Penn  again 


WILLIAM   PENN.  123 

travelled  on  the  Continent.  This  gave  him  an  opportunity  of 
spreading  gospel  truths,  while  he  secured  partial  rest  from  the 
wrath  of  his  enemies.  His  intercourse  was  not  confined  to  the 
poor  or  middle  classes,  for  frequently  his  meetings  were  held 
with  the  members  of  many  noble  families  who  remembered  with 
gratitude  his  earnest  ministry  in  their  behalf.  About  this  time 
Admiral  Penn  felt  his  end  approaching,  when  he  fully  relented 
towards  his  son,  to  whom  he  said,  "  Son  William,  if  you  and 
your  friends  keep  to  your  plain  way  of  preaching  and  to  your 
plain  way  of  living,  you  will  make  an  end  of  the  priests  to  the 
end  of  the  world." 

William  Penn  married  in  1672,  and  settled  at  Rickmans- 
worth ;  but  his  spirit  was  still  one  of  anxiety  for  the  welfare  of 
his  friends,  and  he  continued  to  look  around  for  some  means  by 
which  he  might  aid  their  escape  from  bitter  thraldom.  Sub- 
sequently he  removed  to  Worminghurst,  in  Sussex,  where  in 
closer  retirement  he  could  further  the  end  in  view.  In  1675 
two  Friends,  having  some  differences  relative  to  a  tract  of  land  in 
New  Jersey,  left  the  matter  to  the  arbitration  of  William  Penn, 
who  finally  became  trustee  and  manager  to  the  western  part, 
and  framed  a  constitution  for  it,  the  result  being  the  formation 
of  a  colony  on  entirely  Christian  principles.  The  enterprise 
succeeded  admirably,  and  he  at  once  formed  other  resolutions 
for  the  assistance  of  his  persecuted  brethren.  The  death  of 
Admiral  Penn  placed  his  son  in  the  receipt  of  about  £1,500  per 
annum,  and  there  were  in  addition  claims  on  Government, 
chiefly  for  money  lent,  which  by  the  accumulation  of  interest 
had  increased  to  upwards  of  £16,000.  William  Penn  petitioned 
the  Privy  Council  to  grant,  in  lieu  of  money,  by  letters  patent, 
a  tract  of  land,  then  unoccupied,  adjoining  Maryland  and  New 
Jersey.  The  scheme  was  referred  to  a  committee.  It  was  de- 
nounced as  Utopian,  wild,  and  impracticable,  an  encouragement 
to  the  dissolute  and  discontented,  and  dangerous  to  existing  gov- 
ernments ;  but  after  protracted  delays  the  request  was  granted. 
The  new  colony  was  named  Pennsylvania  by  the  King  in  honor 
of  Admiral  Penn,  and  as  indicative  of  the  wooded  nature  of  the 
country. 


124  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Wearied  with  the  pride,  selfishness,  and  heartless  cruelty  of 
the  Old  World,  William  Penn  in  the  fulness  of  his  Christian 
love  and  generous  mind  now  turned  to  the  New.  His  dearest 
hopes  were  about  to  be  realized.  Here  he  would  carry  out  the 
designs  he  had  so  long  cherished;  here  his  persecuted  and 
oppressed  brethren  should  find  a  peaceful  home  and  freedom 
of  worship ;  here  peace  and  Christianity  should  form  the  prin- 
ciples of  government,  while  the  ignorant  savage  of  adjoining 
lands  should  be  taught  to  regard  the  settlers  as  friends,  and  be 
prepared  to  receive  the  glorious  truths  of  the  gospel.  Although 
the  King  made  Penn  a  grant  of  this  territory,  which  was  about 
three  hundred  miles  long  and  one  hundred  and  sixty  broad,  he 
nevertheless  deemed  it  his  duty  to  purchase  it  from  the  Indians 
who  roamed  over  it  at  will.  He  further  agreed  with  them  to  re- 
fer all  differences  to  a  conference  of  twelve  persons,  —  six  whites 
and  six  Indians.  This  arrangement  gave  great  satisfaction,  and 
the  savage  tribes  remained  fast  friends  ever  afterwards. 

The  noble  words  in  which  Penn  laid  down  those  broad  prin- 
ciples of  truth  and  justice  which  were  to  signalize  his  dealings 
with  the  red  men  —  words  which  carried  to  their  simple  minds 
such  conviction  of  the  white  man's  honesty  of  purpose  as  at  once 
secured  their  confidence  and  respect — deserve  to  be  inscribed 
in  letters  of  gold.  "  The  Great  Spirit,"  said  Penn,  "  who  made 
you  and  us,  who  rules  the  heaven  and  the  earth,  and  who 
knows  the  innermost  thoughts  of  man,  knows  that  I  and  my 
friends  have  a  hearty  desire  to  live  in  peace  and  friendship  with 
you,  and  to  serve  you  to  the  utmost  of  our  power.  Our  object 
is  not  to  do  injury,  but  to  do  good.  We  are  here  met  on  the 
broad  pathway  of  good  faith  and  good-will,  so  that  no  advan- 
tage may  be  taken  on  either  side,  but  all  shall  be  openness, 
brotherhood,  and  love.  I  would  not  compare  the  friendship 
now  sought  to  a  chain,  since  the  rain  might  rust  it  or  a  tree  fall 
and  break  it ;  but  the  Indians  shall  be  esteemed  by  us  as  the 
same  flesh  and  blood  with  the  Christians,  and  the  same  as  if 
one  man's  body  was  to  be  divided  in  two  parts,  and,  as  such, 
the  ground  should  be  occupied  as  common  to  both  people." 
So  "  Penn's  Treaty,"  as  it  is  called,  has  become  one  of  the 


WILLIAM    PENN.  125 

important  landmarks  of  American  history.  Its  commemoration 
by  West's  pencil  has  given  it  a  place  as  such  beside  the  "  Land- 
ing of  the  Pilgrims"  in  the  popular  regard  of  the  nation;  for 
since  all  Christian  people  now  feel  greater  pride  in  the  con- 
quests of  peace  than  in  those  of  war,  Penn's  work  grows  greater 
with  the  lapse  of  years. 

The  government  of  the  colony  was  amply  set  forth  in  a  code 
of  well-devised  declarations,  and  in  no  respect  was  it  ever  as- 
serted that  the  plan  was  imperfect  or  unsuitable.  As  long  as 
peace-loving  Christians  were  connected  with  the  administration 
of  the  laws  and  government  affairs,  no  cause  for  alarm  was  pres- 
ent; but  in  this  as  in  all  human  enterprises  traducers  were 
not  wanting  who  represented  Pennsylvania  as  in  confusion,  on 
which  the  King  was  prevailed,  in  1692,  to  deprive  William 
Penn  of  the  government  of  it  and  confer  it  upon  Colonel 
Fletcher,  of  New  York,  under  whose  despotic  and  military  care 
it  only  remained  two  years.  In  1694  it  was  restored,  to  the 
great  satisfaction  of  all  concerned.  The  government  of  the  col- 
ony under  William  Penn  was  peace  and  tranquillity.  The  oath 
was  never  administered.  The  constable's  staff  was  the  only 
symbol  of  authority.  Soldiers  were  neither  required  nor  em- 
ployed, and  perfect  equality  existed  among  all  religious  denom- 
inations. The  world  may  take  example  and  proof  of  what  may 
be  accomplished  by  a  people  bent  on  a  mission  of  love  and 
peace.  Penn's  treaty  with  the  Indians  shows  what  can  be  done 
even  with  a  nation  of  savages,  and  his  whole  life  is  a  bright  ex- 
ample of  what  a  noble  mind  and  Christian  impulse  can  produce 
even  upon  the  most  untutored  beings. 

The  remainder  of  Penn's  life  was  spent  in  great  activity, —  in 
ministry  at  home  and  abroad,  and  in  religious  visits  to  the 
highest  personages;  in  repeated  visits  to  Pennsylvania;  in 
pleading  the  cause  of  his  brethren  at  the  English  Court,  to 
which  he  ^always  had  access;  in  writing  religious  works  and 
suffering  in  prison.  Throughout  he  possessed  indomitable  en- 
ergy and  perseverance,  combined  with  the  love  and  gentleness 
of  a  child.  Although  he  suffered  the  keenest  persecution  he 
was  ever  ready  to  return  good  for  the  evil.  He  suffered  for  a 


126  OUR    GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

principle.  His  life  was  sacrificed  completely  for  the  welfare 
and  happiness  of  others ;  his  was  a  heroism  little  short  of  mar- 
tyrdom, and  to  William  Penn  and  his  contemporaries  we  are  at 
this  age  indebted  for  many  of  the  blessings  we  enjoy.  Among 
his  many  writings  not  the  least  valuable  is  his  "  Essay  toward 
the  Present  and  Future  Peace  of  Europe,"  —  a  code  of  principles 
which  have  been  variously  reproduced  of  late  years,  not  without 
good  effect. 

William  Penn's  health  suddenly  failed  in  1708,  after  a  tedious 
imprisonment.  He  retired  to  Kensington,  and  subsequently  to 
Rushcombe,  in  Berkshire,  where  he  still  occupied  his  time  in 
literary  work,  his  last  production  being  a  preface  to  the  writings 
of  his  friend  Joseph  Banks,  in  1711,  which  he  dictated  as  he 
walked,  cane  in  hand,  about  the  room.  .At  length  he  became 
enfeebled,  and  in  1718  he  peacefully  closed  his  remarkable, 
interesting,  honorable,  and  laborious  life,  at  the  age  of  seventy- 
four,  and  was  interred  at  Jordans,  a  quiet  hamlet  in  Bucking- 
hamshire near  his  former  home,  and  where  rested  the  remains 
of  his  first  wife  and  members  of  her  family,  the  Penningtons. 
Around  his  grave  a  large  concourse,  not  only  of  Friends,  but 
members  of  other  religious  denominations  from  all  parts  of 
England,  assembled,  all  anxious  to  do  homage  to  the  virtues  of 
a  man  of  whom  it  may  be  truly  said,  "  He  lived  only  for  others 
and  heaven,  for  the  suppression  of  cruelty  and  wrong,  and  for 
the  glorification  of  God." 

The  fact  that  such  men  as  Penn  are  constantly  in  the  midst  of 
their  species  from  age  to  age  is  the  hope  and  safety  of  human- 
ity; for  without  them  the  race  must  degenerate,  and  lose  its 
special  claim  to  superiority  in  the  system  of  created  intelli- 
gence. He  was  great  in  his  own  day,  but  he  has  become 
greater  in  the  eyes  of  posterity.  Hence,  although  no  monu- 
mental marble  marks  his  grave,  nor  sculptured  records  blazon 
forth  his  deeds,  his  name  still  lives  in  the  hearts  and  memo- 
ries of  thousands;  and  through  him  the  Indian  savage  and 
the  white  man  mutually  rejoice,  hand  in  hand,  in  a  common 
salvation  which  shall  last  when  time  shall  be  no  more,  and 
monuments  perish  with  the  dust  and  decay  of  worlds. 


SIR    SAMUEL    ROMILLY. 


SIR   SAMUEL   ROMILLY.  129 


SIR  SAMUEL    ROMILLY. 

[BoRN  1757.    DIED  1818.] 

i 

AMONG  many  celebrated  and  successful  advocates  who 
have  been  members  of  national  legislative  bodies,  but 
very  few  men  have  distinguished  themselves  as  great  liberal- 
minded  politicians,  brilliant  senatorial  debaters,  and  wise  and 
energetic  reformers.  Of  those  who  have  achieved  this  superior 
reputation,  Sir  Samuel  Romilly  is  a  remarkable  example;  for 
not  only  was  he  the  first  advocate  and  the  most  profound  law- 
yer of  his  age,  but  he  was  also  a  judicious  and  eminently 
practical  politician  and  a  most  powerful  parliamentary  speaker. 
From  the  great  and  commanding  talents,  deep  learning,  and 
moral  goodness  he  possessed,  and  the  wise  use  he  made  of 
these  qualities  for  the  public  good,  and  from  which  important 
results  have  followed,  he  has  earned  the  admiration  and  esteem 
of  all  intelligent  persons  as  an  eminent  public  benefactor. 

This  great  and  good  man,  who  was  born  in  London  in  1757, 
was  the  son  of  a  jeweller  who  carried  on  business  there.  His 
early  education  appears  to  have  been  very  defective ;  but  by 
much  assiduous  and  systematic  study  after  he  left  school  at 
fourteen  years  of  age,  he  became  a  well-educated  youth.  In 
his  sixteenth  year  he  was  articled  to  one  of  the  six  clerks  in 
Chancery,  with  the  view  to  the  purchase  of  a  seat  in  their  office 
at  the  end  of  his  articleship.  His  disinclination,  however,  to 
inconvenience  his  father  to  make  this  purchase  induced  him  to 
renounce  entirely  his  prospects  of  this  appointment  at  the  Six 
Clerks'  Office  and  to  study  for  the  bar.  Accordingly,  on  serv- 
ing his  articleship  and  completing  his  twenty-first  year,  he 
became  a  member  of  Gray's  Inn  and  a  pupil  of  an  able  equity 
draughtsman,  and  began  to  study  law  with  great  energy.  He 
also  much  improved  his  mind  by  useful  general  reading,  by 


130  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

translating  the  Latin  historians  and  orators,  by  sometimes 
writing  political  essays  for  the  newspapers,  and  in  occasionally 
attending  the  Houses  of  Parliament  to  exercise  his  powers  of 
abstraction,  argument,  and  expression  in  writing  imaginary 
replies  to  the  debates  which  he  had  heard  there.  The  severe 
mental  labor  which  he  underwent  during  his  studentship  for 
the  bar  proved  so  injurious  to  his  health  that  he  was  compelled 
to  relinquish  his  studies  for  a  time,  and  to  go  to  the  Continent 
to  recover  his  strength.  At  Geneva  and  at  Paris  he  became 
acquainted  with  several  eminent  men,  including  Dumont, 
D'Alembert,  and  Diderot,  who  produced  a  very  marked  effect 
upon  his  character  and  opinions. 

Romilly  was  called  to  the  bar  in  1783.  He  commenced  his 
practice  with  drawing  Chancery  pleadings,  an  employment 
which  gradually  increased ;  but,  like  many  other  eminent  bar- 
risters, he  was  compelled  to  wait  for  some  years  before  he  had 
occasion  to  speak  in  court.  Early  in  the  following  year  he 
joined  the  Midland  Circuit,  which  he  continued  to  frequent 
until  the  extent  of  his  practice  in  the  Court  of  Chancery 
obliged  him  to  confine  himself  to  London,  he  being  at  that 
time,  which  was  about  the  end  of  the  last  century,  leader  of  his 
circuit.  A  few  months  afterwards  he  was  made  a  king's  coun- 
sel; and  this  honor  caused  his  equity  practice  to  increase  so 
rapidly  that  in  five  years  subsequently  he  had  more  briefs  in 
the  Chancery  Court  than  any  other  barrister  who  attended 
it.  The  Bishop  of  Durham  at  this  period  conferred  upon  him 
the  Chancellorship  of  the  County  Palatine  of  Durham,  which 
he  held  for  several  years.  He  was  also  appointed  Solicitor- 
General,  and  knighted  in  1806,  on  the  formation  of  the  Gren- 
ville  Administration,  and  was  brought  into  Parliament  by  the 
Government  as  member  for  Queenborough.  On  the  trial  and 
impeachment  of  Lord  Melville,  Sir  Samuel  Romilly  was  ap- 
pointed one  of  the  managers  for  the  Commons,  and  summed 
up  the  testimony  in  support  of  the  charge.  On  the  dissolution 
of  the  Whig  Administration  in  1807  he  went  out  of  office. 

But  this  eminent  lawyer  will  probably  best  be  appreciated 
by  the  vast  majority  of  the  public  as  a  great  politician,  and  the 


SIR   SAMUEL   ROMILLY.  13* 

reforms  he  advocated  in  and  out  of  Parliament,  and  especially 
as  regards  the  repeal  and  amendment  of  the  criminal  laws. 
For  a  long  time  before  he  left  the  Midland  Circuit  Romilly  was 
much  esteemed  for  his  political  knowledge  and  wisdom ;  and 
the  publication  of  two  pamphlets  by  him  —  one  called  "  A 
Fragment  on  the  Constitutional  Power  and  Duties  of  Juries," 
and  the  other  "  Observations  on  a  late  Publication  entitled 
'  Thoughts  on  Executive  Justice  ' '  —  very  materially  enhanced 
his  reputation  as  one  likely  to  become  a  wise  and  judicious 
criminal-law  reformer.  He  was  three  times  offered  a  seat  in 
Parliament  before  he  was  appointed  Solicitor-General,  namely, 
twice  by  Lord  Lansdowne,  shortly  after  he  was  called  to  the 
bar,  and  once  in  1805  by  the  Prince  of  Wales  (afterward 
George  IV.).  All  these  offers,  however,  Romilly  declined,  from 
a  feeling  of  independence.  After  the  Whig  party  was  over- 
thrown in  1807,  under  whom  he  was  Solicitor-General,  he  was 
returned  to  the  House  of  Commons  for  Horsham  in  the  inter- 
ests of  the  Duke  of  Norfolk ;  and  after  also  representing  Ware- 
ham  and  Arundel,  he  was  ultimately  returned  for  Westminster 
in  1818. 

As  to  the  important  legal  measures  of  reform  which  Sir 
Samuel  Romilly  brought  before  the  notice  of  Parliament,  the 
first  was  a  bill  for  the  amendment  of  the  bankruptcy  laws, 
which  passed  both  Houses,  and  effected  important  improve- 
ments in  such.  He  then  introduced  a  bill  to  make  real  prop- 
erty assets  in  all  cases  for  the  payment  of  simple  contract 
debts.  This,  however,  was  rejected  by  a  considerable  majority. 
But  a  bill  based  upon  a  more  limited  application  of  the  same 
principle,  by  limiting  it  to  the  freehold  property  of  traders, 
was  proposed  by  him  in  the  next  parliamentary  session,  and 
became  law. 

At  the  time  Sir  Samuel  Romilly  entered  Parliament  there  was 
probably  no  nation  in  the  world  in  which  so  many  and  so  great 
a  variety  of  human  actions  were  punishable  with  death  as  in 
England.  No  less  than  three  hundred  crimes,  of  various  de- 
grees of  moral  guilt,  were  then  declared  capital.  The  existence 
of  such  sanguinary  laws  was  not  only  terribly  cruel  and  unjust, 


132  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

but,  as  they  rendered  the  administration  of  criminal  justice 
very  uncertain,  its  efficiency  was  much  impaired  and  its  utility 
greatly  diminished.  Having  devoted  much  of  his  attention  to 
the  theory  and  practice  of  penal  economy  generally,  and  to 
the  English  criminal  laws  in  particular,  and  being  possessed  of 
enlarged  and  philosophical  views  respecting  the  welfare  of  the 
people,  and  a  benevolent  disposition  to  advance  their  true 
interests  as  far  as  he  was  able,  this  great  and  good  man  re- 
solved to  attempt  to  improve  these  iniquitous  laws  as  far  as  he 
consistently  could ;  and  no  individual  in  his  time  was  so  compe- 
tent to  advocate  practical  legislative  measures  to  attain  this 
philanthropic  object.  It  was  Romilly's  urgent  wish  to  advocate 
the  repeal  of  all  the  statutes  at  once  which  punished  with  death 
mere  thefts  unattended  with  any  violence  or  other  circum- 
stances of  aggravation ;  but  as  he  thought  there  was  little 
probability  of  a  bill  passing  in  Parliament  for  so  great  a  reform, 
he  determined  to  propose  in  detail  the  repeal  of  particular 
laws  by  which  punishments  of  disproportionate  severity  were 
declared  to  be  inflicted,  and  thus  to  gradually  expunge  the 
whole  from  the  statutes.  Accordingly  he  presented  a  bill  in 
1808  to  repeal  the  statute  8  Eliz.  c.  4,  by  which  the  penalty  of 
death  was  enacted  for  privately  stealing  from  the  person  of 
another;  and  this  measure  was  passed,  after  some  objection  and 
debate,  in  the  House  of  Commons.  In  1810  three  bills  were 
introduced  by  him  for  the  repeal  of  certain  statutes  making  the 
punishment  capital  for  stealing  privately  in  a  shop  to  the  value 
of  five  shillings,  and  of  stealing  to  the  amount  of  forty  shil- 
lings in  dwelling-houses  or  in  vessels  in  navigable  rivers.  His 
speeches  on  these  proposed  reforms  were  supported  by  a  pub- 
lication he  issued,  entitled  "  Observations  on  the  Criminal  Law 
as  it  relates  to  Capital  Punishments  and  on  the  Mode  in  which 
it  is  administered."  The  first  of  these  bills  passed  the  Com- 
mons, but  was  lost  in  the  House  of  Lords,  and  the  other  two 
were  rejected.  In  the  subsequent  year  the  two  latter  bills  were 
again  brought  forward,  as  well  as  a  further  one  to  abolish  the 
extreme  penalty  of  the  law  for  stealing  in  bleaching  grounds. 
The  four  bills  were  passed  in  the  Lower  House,  but  only  the 


SIR   SAMUEL   ROMILLY.  133 

last-mentioned  one  received  the  royal  assent.  The  Act  of 
Parliament  under  which  persons  were  directed  to  be  hanged 
for  privately  stealing  in  a  shop  to  the  value  of  five  shillings 
was,  according  to  Sir  Samuel  Romilly,  "  the  most  severe  and 
sanguinary  on  our  statute  book,  and  not  only  inconsistent  with 
the  spirit  of  the  times  in  which  we  lived,  but  repugnant  to  the 
law  of  nature,  which  had  no  severer  punishment  to  inflict  for 
the  most  atrocious  of  crimes.  ...  In  the  year  1785  no  less 
than  ninety-seven  persons  were  executed  for  this  offence  in 
London  alone,  and  the  dreadful  spectacle  exhibited  of  twenty 
suffering  at  the  same  time."  The  reasons  advanced  against  the 
aforesaid  criminal-law  reforms  were  extremely  ridiculous,  and 
almost  incredible  for  such  an  enlightened  age.  The  most 
serious  opposition  to  them,  however,  emanated  from  Lord 
Chancellor  Eldon  and  Lord  Ellenborough,  Chief  Justice  of 
England,  as  they  were  both  of  opinion  that  the  criminal  code 
could  not  be  too  severe.  Indeed,  the  latter  nobleman,  accord- 
ing to  Lord  Campbell,  "  was  as  much  shocked  by  a  proposal 
to  repeal  the  punishment  of  death  for  stealing  to  the  value  of 
five  shillings  in  a  shop  as  if  it  had  been  to  abrogate  the  Ten 
Commandments."  Other  peers  dreaded  the  abolition  of  this 
odious  law,  as  its  repeal  would,  as  they  thought,  ruin  half  the 
shopkeepers  in  London. 

Now,  although  the  more  important  measures  of  criminal-law 
amendment  advocated  by  Romilly  did  not  become  law  in  his 
time,  he  was  so  convinced  of  the  justice  of  their  principles 
that  he  endeavored  to  cause  them  to  form  part  of  the  statute 
book  in  each  succeeding  session  of  Parliament  until  his  death. 

This  eminent  man  also  took  an  active  part  in  discussing  all 
the  more  important  political  questions  which  were  introduced 
in  the  House  of  Commons  while  he  was  a  member  of  it,  with 
great  credit  to  himself  and  the  party  to  which  he  belonged. 
The  death  of  his  wife  in  October,  1818,  to  whom  he  was  very 
much  attached,  so  preyed  upon  his  mind  that  he  put  an  end  to 
his  life  in  the  following  month,  in  his  sixty-second  year,  and 
his  death  was  considered  a  great  national  loss. 

His  second  son,  the  late  Lord  Romilly,  who  was  an  eminent 


134  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Equity  judge,  graduated  at  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  and 
was  called  to  the  bar  in  1827.  He  was  made  Solicitor-General 
in  1848,  Attorney-General  in  1850,  Master  of  the  Rolls  in  1851, 
and  elevated  to  the  peerage  as  Baron  Romilly  in  1 866.  He 
resigned  the  Mastership  of  the  Rolls  in  1873,  and  died  at  the 
end  of  the  subsequent  year. 

The  superior  abilities  of  Sir  Samuel  Romilly  were  such  as 
were  well  suited  to  promote  the  philanthropic  views  he  advo- 
cated. He  possessed  the  combined  powers  of  lofty  eloquence 
and  critical  argument,  and  his  oratory  was  distinguished  not 
only  by  precision  and  great  force  of  reasoning,  but  by  much 
keenness  of  satire  and  dramatic  expression.  His  parlia- 
mentary independence  was  never  injured  in  the  slightest  de- 
gree ;  and  while  the  remarkakle  integrity  and  excellence  of 
his  character  gained  him  the  respect  of  all  parties,  his  tran- 
scendent abilities  were  admired  by  friends  and  enemies  alike. 
"  Few  persons,"  said  Lord  Brougham,  "  have  ever  attained 
celebrity  of  name  and  exalted  station,  in  any  country  or  in 
any  age,  with  such  unsullied  purity  of  character  as  this  equally 
eminent  and  excellent  person;"  and  Sir  James  Mackintosh 
spoke  of  him  as  one  whom  he  considered  "  as  among  the 
wisest  and  most  virtuous  men  of  the  present  age."  As  to  his 
private  virtues  and  habits,  these  were  highly  estimable,  and 
considerably  added  to  the  lustre  of  his  public  reputation.  The 
amiability  of  his  character  and  the  modesty  of  his  manner 
rendered  his  society  very  attractive.  In  short,  his  moral  con- 
duct was  so  praiseworthy  and  superior,  that  it  will  always  be 
considered  by  right-minded  persons  an  excellent  model  for 
imitation. 


SAMUEL    WHITBREAD. 


SAMUEL   WHITBREAD.  137 


SAMUEL   WHITBREAD. 

[BORN  1758.    DIED  1815.] 

THE  newspapers  of  to-day  and  the  present  generation  love 
to  call  a  living  statesman  the  tribune  of  the  people ;  and 
this  proud  title  can  with  equal  right  be  given  to  Samuel  Whit- 
bread,  who  was  a  prominent  figure  in  English  parliamentary 
history  during  a  portion  of  the  so-called  Georgian  era. 

Samuel  Whitbread,  son  of  a  brewer,  and  afterwards  the  same 
himself,  was  born  in  1758.  He  was  educated  at  Eton,  matric- 
ulated at  Christchurch,  Oxford,  but  finally  went  to  St.  John's, 
Cambridge.  He  left  college  in  1785,  after  which  he  was  sent  on 
the  Continent  for  a  time  in  charge  of  a  tutor.  Soon  after  his 
return  in  1788  he  married  a  daughter  of  Sir  Charles  Grey,  after- 
wards Earl  Grey,  and  father  df  the  celebrated  Premier  of  that 
name. 

Two  years  later,  in  1790,  he  commenced  public  life  by  offer- 
ing himself  as  a  candidate  for  the  representation  of  Bedford,  and 
after  a  keen  contest  was  elected  .by  a  majority  of  twenty-seven. 

He  took  his  seat  below  the  gangway,  and  throughout  his  life 
he  claimed  for  himself  an  independence  of  action  irrespective  of 
the  ties  of  party,  pledging  himself  to  no  particular  course  of 
action  save  what  conscience  prompted,  humanity  appealed  for, 
and  right  demanded. 

The  pauper,  whose  poverty  was  looked  upon  as  a  crime, 
cheerfully  bore  his  heavy  burden ;  the  black,  whose  body 
showed  the  marks  of  cruel  wrong,  went  about  his  heavy  task 
with  an  almost  lightsome  heart;  the  imprisoned  editor,  whose 
only  fault  had  been  to  maintain  the  justice  of  a  cause  right  in 
his  eyes  though  unpopular  with  the  Government,  sat  contented 
in  his  prison  cell;  the  subject  who  for  religion's  sake  was 
denied  the  same  privileges  as  his  fellow-countrymen  viewed  the 


138  OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

future  with  complacency:  for  one  voice  that  rose  above  the  din 
of  party  cry  fearlessly  and  eloquently  urged  humanity  for  white 
and  black,  demanded  the  freedom  of  the  press  not  as  a  priv- 
ilege but  as  a  right,  and  proclaimed  that  the  Roman  Catholics 
were  as  true  to  King  and  country  as  their  Protestant  brethren, 
and  therefore  entitled  to  equal  rights  and  liberties;  and  that 
voice  was  Samuel  Whitbread's.  The  poor-laws  at  the  time 
were  a  disgrace  to  even  the  then  low  state  of  civilization.  In- 
stead of  being  used  they  were  abused,  and  instead  of  being  a 
means  of  relief  they  were  an  engine  of  pettifogging  tyranny. 
Samuel  Whitbread  brought  in  a  bill  to  alleviate  the  distress  of 
those  who  had  to  seek  relief;  but  his  proposed  reform  was  'in 
advance  of  the  age,  though  in  1812  he  had  the  satisfaction  of 
seeing  a  measure  passed  which,  if  not  exactly  similar  to  his 
own,  contained  many  of  the  same  provisions,  and  might  almost 
be  said  to  have  been  his  work. 

The  mighty  exertions  and  unflagging  zeal  of  Wilberforce  have 
caused  his  name  alone  to  be  identified  with  the  abolition  of  the 
slave  trade;  but  nevertheless  a  share  of  the  honor  is  due  to 
Samuel  Whitbread,  who  fiercely  denounced  this  legal  traffic  in 
human  flesh  and  blood,  and  who  as  fiercely  denied,  when  it  was 
proposed  to  compensate  those  engaged  in  it,  that  any  vested 
interest  could  be  claimed  by  them,  who  morally  if  not  legally 
had  been  wrongdoers  from  the  very  beginning. 

John  Wilkes,  the  sturdy  editor  of  the  "  North  Briton,"  was 
imprisoned  for  sedition ;  but  Samuel  Whitbread,  though  avow- 
ing that  he  did  not  share  in  the  demagogue's  opinions,  de- 
manded his  instantaneous  release,  —  and  obtained  it  too,  — 
claiming  that  freedom  of  speech  was  the  birthright  of  every 
Englishman,  nay,  more,  was  an  heirloom  for  which  their  fore- 
fathers had  wasted  their  estates,  and  had  not  only  shed  their 
own  blood,  but  had  even  not  hesitated  to  dethrone  their  liege 
lord  as  well. 

The  Roman  Catholics  at  this  time  were  denied  the  privilege 
of  sitting  in  Parliament,  and  had  to  submit  to  other  disabilities 
enforced  by  various  statutes  directed  against  them ;  but  Samuel 
Whitbread,  though  himself  a  Protestant  above  suspicion,  in- 


SAMUEL   WHITBREAD.  139 

sisted  upon  the  repeal  of  these  enactments,  declaring  that  the 
Roman  Catholics  had  proved  themselves  to  be  Englishmen  first 
and  Roman  Catholics  afterwards ;  and.  when  a  member  of  the 
Ministry  accused  Daniel  O'Connell  of  trying  to  excite  the  Cath- 
olics against  the  Protestants,  even  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  this 
was  not  to  be  wondered  at,  seeing  that  the  refusal  of  the  Minis- 
try to  grant  Catholic  emancipation  could  only  tend  to  stir  up 
the  Protestants  against  the  Catholics. 

In  foreign  politics  he  was  in  favor  of  what  has  since  been 
designated  as  a  policy  of  "  masterly  inactivity."  He  was  of 
opinion  that  it  was  England's  duty  to  keep  aloof  from  the 
struggle  then  being  fiercely  waged  by  France  against  the  rest 
of  Europe ;  but  a  greater  man,  or  at  least  a  greater  statesman, 
than  he  —  perhaps  the  greatest  statesman  ever  produced  by  Eng- 
land—  enjoyed  the  confidence  of  the  country;  for  William  Pitt 
the  younger,  ever  affectionately  known  as  "Billy"  Pitt,  was  in 
the  zenith  of  his  power.  Other  great  men,  such  as  Fox,  Burke, 
Sheridan,  or  Whitbread,  might  be  allowed  to  furl  a  sail  or 
tighten  a  rope ;  but  Pitt,  and  Pitt  alone,  was  capable  of  steering 
the  national  ship ;  and  so  war  was  declared  against  France,  or, 
more  correctly  speaking,  against  Napoleon.  Historians  have 
generally  pronounced  in  favor  of  the  necessity  of  the  wars  waged 
for  national  security ;  but  it  must  always  be  remembered  that 
those  who  opposed  their  declaration  at  least  did  good  service  by 
ventilating  the  rights  or  wrongs  of  that  now  famous  and  historical 
struggle. 

If,  however,  Whitbread  opposed  the  war  with  France,  he 
gave,  when  once  it  was  declared,  an  active  support  to  it;  for 
not  only  did  he  raise  at  his  own  expense  a  body  of  yeomanry, 
but  he  even  took  the  command  in  person. 

When  Lord  Melville,  the  treasurer  of  the  navy,  was  im- 
peached for  the  misappropriation  of  a  large  sum  of  public 
money,  Whitbread  was  deputed  by  the  opposition  to  appear 
against  the  alleged  offender ;  for  it  was  felt  that  the  office  of 
prosecutor  had  best  be  held  by  a  man  whose  whole  life  had 
been  so  blameless  and  thoroughly  honest.  Lord  Melville, 
however,  was  finally  acquitted  by  the  Lords,  partly,  if  not 


140  OUR    GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

altogether,  owing  to  the  influence  of,  and  the  respect  felt  for, 
William  Pitt,  whose  own  honesty  and  integrity  were  almost 
proverbial ;  but  the  moderate  yet  firm  tone  of  Whitbread 
gained  universal  approbation  from  friend  and  foe  alike,  and  all 
felt  that  a  sense  of  duty  and  a  zeal  for  the  nation's  welfare  had 
alone  tempted  him  to  undertake  such  a  thankless  and  ungrate- 
ful task. 

As  a  philanthropist  and  a  patron  of  arts  he  was  also  dis- 
tinguished ;  for  though  no  particular  charity  or  institution  is 
identified  with  his  name,  he  freely  gave  large  sums  of  money 
towards  worthy  objects,  taking  good  care  never  to  advertise  his 
generosity,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  blushing  to  find  it  fame. 
When  the  finances  of  Drury  Lane  Theatre  were  in  such  a 
confused  and  low  state  that  the  closing  of  the  house  seemed 
inevitable,  he  voluntarily  offered  to  put  them  in  order,  and  in 
addition  subscribed  a  handsome  sum. 

This  self-imposed  task  cost  him  his  life.  He  had  become 
exceedingly  stout,  and  on  this  account  \vas  liable  to  fits  of 
dizziness  caused  by  a  rush  of  blood  to  the  head.  The  doctors 
prescribed  absolute  quiet  and  rest;  but  he  refused  to  obey  their 
commands,  saying  that  he  had  undertaken  the  task  and  there- 
fore he  would  complete  it.  His  end  was  indeed  of  a  tragic  and 
awful  nature.  On  the  6th  of  July,  1815,  he  committed  suicide 
after  dinner,  in  a  fit  of  temporary  insanity,  —  the  direct  result 
of  overwork. 

By  a  strange  coincidence  his  last  vote,  cast  in  the  House  but 
two  days  before,  was  in  favor  *of  a  vote  of  thanks  being  given 
to  the  Duke  of  Wellington ;  for  though,  as  before  stated,  he 
never  approved  of  the  war,  he  nevertheless  considered  that, 
since  the  country  had  decreed  that  it  should  be  waged,  the 
country's  thanks  were  most  certainly  due  to  the  hero  of  a 
score  of  campaigns  and  the  victor  of  Waterloo. 

Little  has  been  said  about  Samuel  Whitbread's  private  life ; 
but  as  a  husband  and  a  father  or  as  a  statesman  and  a  bene- 
factor he  is  equally  entitled  to  our  admiration.  He  lived  on 
the  greatest  terms  of  affection  and  happiness  with  his  wife,  and 
he  almost  lived  again  in  his  children.  He  was  not  only  their 


SAMUEL   WHITBREAD.  141 

father,  but  a  friend  as  well,  an  interested  listener  to  their  joys 
and  troubles,  a  kind  of  stern  judge  of  their  wrong-doings, 
swift  to  punish,  but  equally  swift  to  forgive.  Altogether  he 
had  five  children,  three  sons  and  two  daughters,  all  of  whom, 
with  the  exception  of  one  son  who  died  in  infancy,  survived 
to  grieve  his  loss. 

As  an  orator,  it  is  said  his  speeches  were  luminous  rather 
than  brilliant,  characterized  by  sound  sense  rather  than  by 
daring  flights  of  fancy;  but  he  lived  in  an  age  when  there 
were  more  men  gifted  with  the  highest  quality  of  eloquence 
than  perhaps  there  have  been  before  or  since.  It  was  indeed 
an  age  of  giants.  There  were  Pitt  and  Fox,  Burke,  the  Eng- 
lish Cicero,  Sheridan,  unequalled  as  a  wit  and  almost  unrivalled 
as  a  debater,  besides  many  more  who  very  nearly  attained  as 
high  a  standard ;  and  at  that  time  to  have  been  considered 
even  a  second-rate  orator  was  saying  a  good  deal. 

Too  conscientious  to  be  a  partisan,  too  ready  to  give  an  ear 
to  the  oppressed  whoever  they  might  be,  Samuel  Whitbread 
never  took  office,  and  on  this  account  his  name  is  certainly  less 
familiar  than  some  who  in  reality  achieved  far  less ;  but  the 
most  deserving  are  often  forgotten  by  posterity,  or  at  any  rate 
by  the  undiscriminating  and  non-inquiring  many.  His  claims 
on  the  present  generation  may  not  be  acknowledged,  but  they 
were  granted  in  full  by  the  past.  It  is  said  that  the  first  ques- 
tion a  stranger  put  on  entering  the  House  was,  "  Which  is  Mr. 
Whitbread  ?"  so  great  was  the  popular  admiration  for  him. 
No  man's  death  was  ever  more  sincerely  mourned,  and  at  his 
grave  the  tears  of  friend  and  foe  mingled  together.  A  writer 
chronicling  his  death  describes  his  character  in  a  few  words, 
which,  however,  speak  volumes.  He  says  —  and  few  will  dis- 
agree with  him — "that  whether  as  a  private  individual  or  a 
public  character  Samuel  Whitbread  appears  to  have  been  entitled 
to  the  applause  and  gratitude  of  his  country." 


142  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 


WILLIAM   WILBERFORCE. 

[BORN  AUG.  24,  1759.    DIED  JULY  29,  1833.] 

O  on  in  the  name  of  God,  and  in  the  power  of  His  might, 
till  even  American  slavery,  the  vilest  that  ever  saw  the 
sun,  shall  vanish  away."  The  words  were  at  once  a  prophecy 
and  a  prayer.  His  disciples  gathered  round  him,  his  trembling 
fingers  scarcely  able  to  hold  the  pen,  the  founder  of  a  powerful 
sect  addressed  to  Wilberforce  this  pathetic  and  solemn  adjura- 
tion. It  is  possible  that  Death,  looking  over  the  old  man's 
shoulder,  saw  how  good  was  what  he  wrote,  and,  anxious  that 
the  last  utterance  of  a  mighty  spirit  should  be  eloquent,  gently 
loosened  the  single  thread  that  held  together  soul  and  body. 
For  the  legend  —  a  legend  few  but  must  love  to  credit  —  de- 
scribes this  as  the  last  letter  John  Wesley  penned. 

It  was  in  the  very  fiercest  of  the  conflict  that  the  apostle  of 
Methodism  died.  Years  had  already  elapsed  since  the  com- 
mencement of  the  struggle,  and  many  forms  were  now  coffm- 
dust  that  had  been  seen  in  Westminster  Hall  on  the  day  when,  in 
the  presence  of  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England,  and  with  the 
applause  of  three  nations  welcoming  it,  a  verdict  was  delivered 
declaring,  as  with  the  inspiriting  voice  of  a  trumpet,  that  no 
breath  of  slavery  should  be  suffered  to  infect  English  air,  but 
that  the  whole  island  should  be  a  sanctuary  forever  consecrated 
to  Liberty,  which,  if  any  bondsman  succeeded  in  reaching,  he 
instantly  became  free!  Then  were  first  proclaimed  the  prin- 
ciples that,  spreading, — as  of  old  the  gospel  to  which  they  owe 
their  birth  had  spread,  —  have  proved  more  powerful  than  the 
power  of  princes,  more  persuasive  than  the  temptations  of 
wealth,  that  have  penetrated  to  the  swamps  of  Louisiana  and 
the  forests  of  Hayti,  whose  army  of  martyrs  includes  such  men 
us  Lincoln  and  Livingstone,  and  whose  conquerors  are  dia- 


10 


WILLIAM    WILBERFORCE. 


WILLIAM    WILBERFORCE.  145 

demed  with  a  glory  that  shall  not  fade  away.  And  never  in  the 
press  and  thick  of  the  battle  did  there  strive  a  heartier  cham- 
pion than  Wilberforce.  He  was  the  knight  upon  whom  Free- 
dom could  rely  to  be  faithful  even  unto  death.  Others  might 
covet  the  admiration  of  the  multitude  or  the  applause  of  sen- 
ates; he  sought  only  to  take  from  Britain  the  reproach  that, 
though  hers  was  a  free  soil,  she  trafficked  in  slaves ! 

No  man  was  ever  a  truer  patriot.  His  love  of  country  was 
not  indeed  such  as  might  have  influenced  an  Athenian  or  a 
Roman.  It  was  a  nobler  feeling  than  that  which  caused  Decius 
to  veil  his  head  and  seek  death  in  the  thickest  of  the  battle,  or 
Scaevola  to  give  his  right  hand  to  the  Tuscan  fire.  Such  a 
patriot  as  Wilberforce  did  not  covet  for  England  that  in  her 
hand  should  be  the  sceptre  of  the  world,  —  that  she  should  go 
forth  as  Death  on  the  Pale  Horse,  "  conquering  and  to  con- 
quer." He  desired  above  all  things  for  his  country  that  her 
sword  should  strike  only  on  the  side  of  Right,  that  her  crown 
should  be  the  crown  of  Righteousness,  and  her  place  in  the  van 
of  Truth.  He  could  not  endure  to  see  her  do  wrong ;  a  stain 
on  the  national  honor  chafed  him  as  though  it  soiled  his  own. 
And  beholding,  even  while  yet  a  boy,  how  miserably  the 
leprosy  of  slavery  had  spotted  that  beloved  mother-land,  he 
resolved,  God  aiding,  that  his  life  should  be  devoted  to  freeing 
her  of  her  shame. 

Two  scenes  in  the  life  of  this  great  man  are  invested  with  a 
peculiar  grandeur.  Let  us  draw  back  the  curtain  of  the  past 
and  regard  them  for  a  moment. 

The  first  was  the  night  of  May  13,  1789.  In  the  old  House 
of  Commons,  that  building  where  Pitt  shone  chief  in  oratory  and 
Fox  in  debate,  Wilberforce  launched  the  first  thunders  of  his  elo- 
quence against  the  slave-trade.  It  was  his  pledge  to  give  up 
the  world  and  follow  Christ.  Young,  wealthy,  the  representa- 
tive of  the  largest  shire  in  England,  there  seemed  scarce  a  pin- 
nacle, even  among  the  giddiest  summits  of  political  ambition,  to 
which  he  might  not  aspire  to  climb.  But  his  heart  was  set  on 
nobler  things.  He  knew  that,  while  he  took  his  ease  in  Eng- 
land, voices  across  the  Atlantic  would  be  crying  out  for  the 


146  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Death  that  should  come  as  a  deliverer  from  intolerable  pain. 
Day  and  night  there  was  present  to  his  mind's  vision  the  hor- 
rible hold  of  the  slave-ship,  with  its  cargo  of  suffocating  captives 
torn  from  all  humanity  holds  dear.  His  ears  were  filled  with 
such  cries  as  that  which  broke  from  the  mother  of  Josiah  Hen- 
son,  when  the  purchaser  of  her  last  child  tore  it  from  her  grasp 
and  kicked  her  away,  —  "Oh,  Lord  Jesus,  how  long?  how 
long?"  And  so  on  that  May  evening  Wilberforce  rose,  and 
suffered  the  indignation  of  his  heart  to  burst  forth  in  burning 
words. 

After  almost  twenty  years  came  the  triumph.  On  the  night 
of  Feb.  23,  1807,  the  Abolition  Bill  was  removed  to  the 
Lords  by  a  majority  of  283  to  16.  Slander,  insult,  the  bitter- 
ness of  hope  deferred,  the  coldness  or  treachery  of  friends,  the 
persistent  malice  of  enemies,  —  all  these  had  the  now  veteran 
champion  encountered,  and  over  them  all  had  he  at  length  pre- 
vailed. Sir  Samuel  Romilly  took  occasion  to  contrast  the  work 
of  Wilberforce  with  that  of  Bonaparte.  The  master  of  armies 
would  lie  that  night  in  the  Tuileries,  and  even  in  his  dreams  see 
Europe  at  his  feet.  The  Apostle  of  Freedom  would  seek  a  less 
stately  roof  and  a  humbler  pillow;  but  over  his  pillow  would 
hover  the  glorious  certainty  that  everywhere  throughout  that 
empire  on  which  the  sun  does  not  set,  the  slave,  by  his  and  his 
colleagues'  efforts,  was  at  length  FREE !  As  the  words  left  the 
speaker's  lips  the  House  rose  almost  to  a  man,  and,  every  eye 
directed  towards  Wilberforce,  burst  into  a  thunder  of  applause. 

Twenty-six  years  later  the  Liberator  died.  He  was  laid  near 
the  north  door  of  the  Abbey,  —  a  resting-place  appropriated  to 
statesmen.  His  neighbors  in  death  are  many  and  famous. 
There  Pitt  and  Fox,  the  long  quarrel  of  their  lives  forever  com- 
posed, lie  side  by  side.  A  shapely  figure  of  marble  marks  the 
grave  that  received  the  stilled  brain  and  broken  heart  of  George 
Canning.  Ireland  has  given  her  Grattan,  —  his  very  name  is 
an  epitaph ;  Scotland,  the  Murray  who,  as  Chief  Justice,  pro- 
nounced slavery  a  curse  alien  and  abhorrent  to  the  soil  of  Britain. 
They  lie  forever  in  state,  these  dead,  —  having  in  life  done  dutiful 
service  to  their  country. 


WILLIAM     LLOYD     GARRISON. 


WILLIAM    LLOYD   GARRISON.  149 

Very  solemn  is  it  to  pass  from  the  stir  outside  into  the  rever- 
ent and  majestic  stillness  that  keeps  watch  over  the  relics  of 
these  great  citizens.  Dim  rays  of  violet  and  crimson,  the 
changed  shadows  of  the  sunbeams  without,  steal  through  the 
painted  window  at  the  end  of  the  transept,  and  fall  in  shifting 
radiance  athwart  the  marble  imagery  that  lends  its  adornment 
to  the  mansions  of  the  dead.  To  stand  by  the  tomb  of  Wilber- 
force  in  the  mist  of  evening,  when  few  people  are  present,  is  as 
though  one  rested  at  the  very  gate  of  peace.  Or,  if  the  time  be 
that  of  public  worship,  and  the  mighty  voice  of  the  organ  is 
lifted,  the  strains  will  seem  an  anthem  rejoicing  over  what  the 
DEAD  MAN  HAD  DONE  IN  THE  SERVICE  OF  HIS  LORD. 

Wilberforce  left  to  his  descendants,  not  the  lustre  of  a  title, 
but  the  more  splendid  inheritance  of  his  genius  and  his  virtues. 
Oxford  reveres  his  son  as  among  the  best  and  most  eloquent  of 
her  bishops ;  and  his  grandson,  the  Canon  of  Winchester,  has, 
by  numerous  good  works,  approved  himself  worthy  to  bear  the 
name  of  the  Liberator,  who  found  thousands  slaves  and  left 
them  free.  "  In  the  sign  of  the  Cross  "  were  the  triumphs  of 
that  ancestor  achieved,  — the  sign  before  which,  even  in  Amer- 
ica, the  Dagon  of  slavery  has  now  fallen  prostrate,  —  the  sign 
that  still  shines  foremost  wherever  civilization  is  to  be  advanced, 
freedom  striven  for,  or  souls  gained  to  God. 


WILLIAM    LLOYD   GARRISON. 

[BORN  1804.    DIED  1879.] 

r  I  ^HE  benefactors  of  the  world  throughout  all  ages  have' had 
-•-  to  struggle  against  indifference,  conservatism,  and  self- 
interest.  A  purer  vision  has  revealed  to  them  truths  which  at 
present  are  unseen  by  others.  A  clearer  insight  into  things,  a 
keener  sympathy,  it  may  be,  with  sorrow  and  suffering,  hafc 
opened  to  them  depths  to  which  no  other  eye  had  pierced. 


150  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

i 

The  lofty  soul  is  at  once  moved  with  compassion,  and  its  whole 
being  is  stirred  into  action.  The  evil  which  has  thus  been 
opened  up  to  this  great  heart  is  of  man's  doing  and  can  be 
removed.  And  he  pleads  with  men.  He  places  higher 
motives  before  them  and  loftier  aims.  He  points  out  to  them 
objects  of  duty,  and  urges  them  forward  to  their  attainment. 
With  what  result?  To  some  he  is  an  enthusiast  who  is  asking 
for  the  impossible;  to  some  he  is  a  demagogue — an  obstruc- 
tionist, perhaps  —  who  wishes  to  overthrow  the  grand  institu- 
tions of  ages;  while  to  others — the  makers  of  silver  shrines, 
and  so  on  —  he  is  a  troublesome  agitator,  who  wishes  to  bring 
their  country  to  ruin  and  desolation. 

But  this  reception  only  increases  his  earnestness.  It  acts 
upon  his  spirit  as  a  tonic,  and  he  works  on.  Presently,  one  by 
one,  men  begin  to  be  convinced,  and  gradually  they  rally  round 
him,  each  one  influencing  his  own  circle,  till,  as  time  rolls  on, 
the  inspirations  of  one  man  have  worked  themselves  into  the 
minds  of  myriads,  till  the  thing  which  was  once  impossible  has 
at  length  come  to  pass ;  and  this  man  —  the  enthusiast,  the 
obstructionist,  the  demagogue,  the  despised  of  yesterday  —  is 
the  loved  and  honored  of  to-day.  It  is  often  so.  It  was  so 
with  the  subject  of  this  sketch. 

William  Lloyd  Garrison  was  born  at  Newburyport,  Massa- 
chusetts, in  the  year  1804;  and  when  seven  years  of  age,  in 
order  to  permit  of  his  mother  following  the  occupation  of  a 
sick-nurse,  he  was  placed  under  the  care  of  Ezekiel  Bartlett, 
a  rail-splitter  by  trade,  and  a  deacon  of  the  Newburyport  Bap- 
'  tist  Church.  At  the  early  age  of  eleven  years  his  mother 
found  it  desirable  that  her  son  should  begin  work,  and  he  was 
successively  placed  with  a  shoemaker  and  a  cabinet-maker; 
but,  neither  of  these  occupations  being  at  all  to  his  mind,  he 
was  permitted  to  return  to  his  former  home  till  something  more 
suitable  should  be  found  for  him,  assisting,  in  the  meantime, 
the  good  old  deacon  in  his  trade  of  rail-splitting.  At  length, 
when  thirteen  years  of  age,  it  was  discovered  that  an  appren- 
tice was  wanted  at  the  office  of  the  "  Newburyport  Herald ;  " 
and  thereupon,  everything  seeming  favorable,  he  was  duly 


WILLIAM   LLOYD   GARRISON.  151 

articled  to  be  taught  the  art  and  mystery  of  letterpress  print- 
ing. His  new  occupation  delighted  him.  Nothing  in  the  world 
could  have  been  better  adapted  to  his  taste.  The  mechanical 
part  of  the  business  was  particularly  attractive,  and  the  gen- 
eral knowledge  to  be  attained  in  the  work  of  type-setting 
helped  considerably  to  add  to  his  happiness.  His  education 
hitherto  had  been  only  of  the  most  elementary  kind,  and  he 
had  often  wished  for  a  wider  range  of  books  than  were  to  be 
obtained  at  the  deacon's.  He  was  now  able  in  great  measure 
to  gratify  his  thirst  for  knowledge,  and  sought  every  oppor- 
tunity to  improve  his  mind  and  to  increase  his  general  stock 
of  information,  assisting,  among  other  things,  in  the  forma- 
tion of  a  debating  society  for  the  apprentices  and  youth  of  the 
neighborhood. 

At  the  age  of  sixteen  he  commenced  his  literary  career  by 
contributing  an  anonymous  article  to  the  newspaper  on  which 
he  was  employed.  The  article  was  on  a  subject  of  local  in- 
terest, was  humorously  written,  and  was  signed  "An  Old 
Bachelor."  Its  favorable  reception  induced  him  to  repeat  the 
experiment ;  and  from  that  time  scarcely  a  week  passed  without 
a  contribution  either  in  poetry  or  prose  from  the  unknown  con- 
tributor "  A.  O.  B."  Garrison  was  over  nineteen  years  of  age 
when  at  length  the  authorship  of  the  articles  was  discovered, 
and  he  was  soon  afterwards  promoted  to  the  post  of  assist- 
ant editor,  the  entire  management  of  the  printing-office  being 
placed  under  his  care.  A  series  of  articles  on  national  affairs 
which  he  now  contributed  to  the  paper  attracted  considerable 
attention  beyond  the  usual  limits  of  its  circulation,  and  were 
popularly  attributed  to  one  of  the  most  distinguished  statesmen 
of  America. 

During  this  time  the  young  and  rising  apprentice  had  been 
in  constant  correspondence  with  his  mother ;  and  her  letters, 
filled  to  overflowing  with  all  the  strong  and  loving  sentiment  of 
the  noblest  womanhood,  inspired  him  to  constant  and  heroic 
effort  in  his  authorship  and  his  daily  work.  Shortly  before 
the  termination  of  his  apprenticeship  she  was  seized  with  an 
illness  which  was  considered  likely  to  prove  fatal;  and  young 


I $2  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Garrison  made  a  journey  of  six  hundred  miles  to  see  her, 
cheering  and  reviving  her  for  a  time,  but  only  for  a  time ;  and 
a  few  weeks  after  his  return  she  passed  peacefully  away. 

In  December,  1825,  soon  after  the  term  of  his  apprentice- 
ship had  expired,  William  Lloyd  Garrison  left  the  service  of 
Mr.  Allen,  and  started  the  "  Free  Press."  But  the  undertaking 
proved  a  failure ;  for  although  he  did  most  of  the  mechanical 
work  connected  with  it  himself,  setting  up  his  editorials  without 
even  committing  them  to  paper,  he  found  his  capital  insuffi- 
cient to  continue  the  venture,  and  after  a  brief  existence  of  six 
months  the  paper  ceased  to  appear,  and  Garrison  found  him- 
self in  debt. 

In  order  to  retrieve  his  fortune  he  left  Newburyport  for 
Boston,  and  there  engaged  himself  as  a  compositor  on  the 
"  National  Philanthropist,"  the  first  paper  in  the  world  which 
advocated  the  cause  of  total  abstinence ;  and  there,  as  a  matter 
of  principle,  he  joined  the  teetotal  cause.  It  was  not  long 
before  he  received  the  appointment  of  editor  of  the  paper; 
and  it  was  while  fulfilling  this  position  that  his  attention  became 
attracted  to  a  subject  which  was  destined  to  affect  the  whole 
course  of  his  life,  which  was  to  hold  him  in  its  thraldom  and 
nerve  him  to  brave  a  world  of  foes,  in  order  that  he  might  free 
his  fellow-countrymen  from  the  inhuman  bondage  of  slavery. 

Benjamin  Lundy,  a  member  of  the  Society  of  Friends,  was 
the  first  man  in  the  United  States  to  devote  his  life  to  the  aboli- 
tion of  negro  slavery.  A  newspaper,  the  "  Genius  of  Univer- 
sal Emancipation,"  published  by  him  at  Baltimore,  came  into 
the  hands  of  Garrison,  and  awakened  in  him  a  keen  sense  of 
the  degradation  connected  with  this  debasing  traffic  both  to  the 
slave  and  to  the  slave-owner,  and  he  determined  to  consecrate 
his  life  henceforth  to  deliver  the  negro  from  the  galling  bonds 
of  slavery. 

His  denunciations  of  slaveholding  soon  attracted  general 
attention,  and  one  of  the  first  results  was  an  offer  from  Benja- 
min Lundy  himself  to  join  him  as  joint  editor  of  the  "  Genius 
of  Universal  Emancipation,"  which  Garrison  accepted. 

Lundy  had  hitherto  advocated  "  gradual  emancipation ;  "  but 


WILLIAM   LLOYD   GARRISON.  153 

under  the  joint  editorship  the  first  number  raised  the  standard 
of  "  immediateism,"  and,  as  might  naturally  be  expected,  a 
firmer  tone  pervaded  the  articles.  The  slave-owners  now  be- 
gan to  be  alarmed.  For  the  first  time  their  favored  institution 
seemed  in  imminent  danger.  Those  who  had  hitherto  favored 
Lundy's  advocacy  now  drew  back,  and  even  in  the  Northern 
States  the  supporters  of  the  paper  fell  off  on  all  hands.  The 
upholders  of  slavery  determined  to  make  an  effort  to  crush  the 
paper,  and  an  opportunity  soon  presented  itself.  A  merchant 
of  Newburyport,  whom  Garrison  had  known  in  his  youth,  had 
laid  himself  open  to  very  severe  strictures  in  reference  to  the 
importation  of  slaves,  and  Garrison  declared  that  he  was  de- 
serving of  imprisonment  for  life  for  his  illegal  practices.  For 
this  Garrison  was  indicted  for  libel,  and,  the  judge  and  jury  all 
being  of  pro-slavery  principles,  he  was  adjudged  guilty,  and  a 
fine  was  imposed  which  he  was  unable  to  pay.  He  was  there- 
upon incarcerated  in  Baltimore  prison,  occupying  a  cell  which 
had  recently  been  vacated  by  a  prisoner  who  had  paid  the 
extreme  penalty  of  the  law,  and  was  only  released  on  the  inter' 
vention  of  Mr.  Arthur  Tappan,  of  New  York,  who  paid  the 
fine. 

While  in  prison  Garrison  wrote  a  graphic  account  of  his 
mock  trial,  which  was  afterwards  published  and  circulated 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  United  States,  and 
which  did  more  in  a  couple  of  months  to  stir  up  an  anti-slavery 
feeling  than  could  otherwise  have  been  accomplished  in  as 
many  years.  He  also  employed  many  hours  in  writing  on  the 
walls  of  his  cell  denunciations  against  slavery,  and  after  the 
manner  of  Raleigh,  when  immured  in  the  Tower,  inscribing 
thereon  words  of  comfort  and  consolation  to  any  future  occu- 
pant who  might  be  thus  wrongfully  incarcerated.  One  of  these 
noble  effusions  was  as  follows :  — 

"  Prisoner!  within  these  massive  walls  close  pent, 
Guiltless  of  horrid  crime  or  trivial  wrong, 
Bear  nobly  up  against  thy  punishment, 
And  in  thy  innocence  be  great  and  strong  ! 
Perchance  thy  fault  was  love  to  all  mankind, 


154  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Thou  didst  oppose  some  vile,  oppressive  law, 
Or  strive  all  human  fetters  to  unbind, 
Or  wouldst  not  bear  the  implements  of  war. 
What  then  !  dost  thou  so  soon  repent  the  deed  ? 
A  martyr's  crown  is  richer  than  a  king's ! 
Think  it  an  honor  with  thy  Lord  to  bleed, 
And  glory  midst  the  intensest  sufferings  ! 
Though  beaten,  imprisoned,  put  to  open  shame, 
Time  shall  embalm  and  glorify  thy  name." 

On  his  release  from  prison  Garrison  at  once  discovered  that 
it  would  be  quite  impossible  to  carry  on  his  paper  under  the 
altered  circumstances.  No  one  dared  to  be  known  as  a  sup- 
porter of  it,  and  its  subscribers  dropped  off  on  all  hands.  A 
building  for  the  delivery  of  a  course  of  lectures  could  not  be 
obtained  at  any  price.  The  religious  bodies  were  no  more 
favorable  to  his  views  than  were  others.  So  he  left  Benjamin 
Lundy  and  other  friends  at  Baltimore,  and  went  to  Boston.  But 
the  same  state  of  things  prevailed  at  Boston.  No  one  dared  to 
support  or  countenance  him  in  his  noble  and  philanthropic 
crusade,  and  not  a  newspaper  would  assist  him  in  propagating 
his  views.  At  length,  after  much  difficulty,  the  use  of  a  hall 
was  offered  him,  in  which  he  delivered  a  course  of  lectures, 
proclaiming  "  liberty  to  the  captive,  and  the  opening  of  the 
prison  doors  to  them  that  were  bound." 

In  Boston  Garrison  met  with  an  old  acquaintance  in  the  per- 
son of  Isaac  Knapp,  a  printer,  and  with  his  assistance  he  deter- 
mined to  start  a  newspaper  of  his  own.  The  first  number  of 
the  "  Liberator "  was  published  on  the  first  day  of  January, 
1831.  It  v/as  a  small,  unpretentious-looking  sheet,  but  it  gave 
forth  no  uncertain  sound. 

"  I  am  aware,"  said  Garrison  in  this  first  issue,  "  that  many 
object  to  the  severity  of  my  language ;  but  is  there  not  cause 
for  such  severity?  I  will  be  as  harsh  as  truth  and  as  uncom- 
promising as  justice.  I  am  in  earnest.  I  will  not  equivocate, 
I  will  not  excuse,  I  will  not  retract  a  single  inch,  and  /  will 
be  heard."  The  first  numbers  were  printed  for  him  and  paid 
for  by  his  own  and  his  friend  Knapp's  labor  as  compositors ; 
but  after  a  short  time  they  were  enabled  to  purchase  some 


WILLIAM    LLOYD   GARRISON.  155 

second-hand  type  and  an  old  press,  which  they  set  up  in  a 
garret  in  the  old  Merchants'  Hall.  This  one  dingy  room, 
which  has  been  immortalized  by  James  Russell  Lowell,  served 
as  a  printing-office,  living-room,  and  bedroom  for  Garrison,  his 
friend  Knapp,  and  a  small  negro  boy. 

"  In  a  small  chamber,  friendless  and  unseen, 
Toiled  o'er  his  types  a  poor  unlearned  young  man. 
The  place  was  dark,  unfurnitured,  and  mean, 
Yet  there  the  freedom  of  a  race  began." 

So  limited  were  the  means  of  Garrison  in  the  early  days  of 
this  noble  enterprise,  that  the  diet  of  himself  and  his  assistants 
was  confined  principally  to  bread  and  water,  with  now  and  then 
the  luxury  of  a  little  milk. 

The  excitement  and  consternation  caused  by  this  little  print, 
throughout  the  Southern  States  especially,  was  immense. 
Threats  of  the  most  deadly  character  and  insults  of  every  kind 
poured  in  upon  Garrison  by  almost  every  post;  and  the  Legis- 
lative Assembly  of  the  State  of  Georgia  was  so  lost  to  every 
sense  of  honor  and  humanity  that  it  offered  a  reward  of  five 
thousand  dollars  for  his  head.  Nothing,  indeed,  more  clearly 
shows  the  brutalizing  effect  of  slavery,  and  the  necessity  for  its 
extinction,  than  the  lawlessness  and  inhumanity  which  marked 
the  efforts  of  those  who  opposed  its  fall. 

Some  time  before  this  a  society  calling  itself  the  American 
Colonization  Society  had  come  into  existence,  whose  avowed 
object  was  to  put  an  end  to  the  foreign  slave  trade  and  of  evan- 
gelizing Africa,  but  whose  real  purpose  Garrison  soon  dis- 
covered to  be  the  deportation  of  the  free  colored  people,  who 
were  always  a  source  of  danger  and  annoyance  in  their  midst. 
Garrison  soon  opened  the  eyes  of  the  philanthropists  of 
America  to  the  self-seeking  designs  of  this  society ;  and,  it 
having  sent  an  emissary  to  England  for  the  furtherance  of  its 
object  there,  he  determined  to  follow  and  unmask  the  villanous 
imposture  to  the  people  of  that  country.  He  arrived  in  Eng- 
land in  May,  1833  ;  and  having  explained  his  mission  in  several 
public  meetings  and  before  some  of  the  greatest  English  states- 
men and  philanthropists  of  that  day,  he  was  enabled  to  return 


I$6  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

to  his  own  country  in  possession  of  a  strong  and  emphatic 
protest  against  the  aims  of  the  society,  signed  by  Fowell  Bux- 
ton,  Wilberforce,  Macaulay,  and  others.1 

On  his  return  to  the  United  States  Garrison  found  that  the 
news  of  his  success  had  preceded  him ;  and  at  New  York, 
where  his  friends  had  arranged  to  hold  a  meeting  at  which  he 
was  to  be  present,  the  friends  of  the  slave-owners  had  issued 
placards  announcing  that  the  "  infamous  Garrison  "  had  arrived 
and  would  be  present  at  a  meeting ;  and  the  "  friends  of  order  " 
—  that  is,  the  friends  of  slavery  —  were  exhorted  "to  assemble 
and  hurry  him  to  the  tar-kettle."  When  the  hour  of  the  meet- 
ing arrived  the  hall  was  surrounded  by  a  mob  of  several  thou- 
sand excited  and  infuriated  "  friends  of  order,"  eager  to  wreak 
their  vengeance  on  a  man  whom  a  few  years  later  they  were 
just  as  eager  to  bless. 

The  excitement  among  the  friends  of  the  slave-owners  pro- 
duced a  corresponding  enthusiasm  in  the  ranks  of  the  aboli- 
tionists ;  and  a  grand  national  convention  of  the  friends  of 
emancipation  was  held  at  Philadelphia,  which  resulted  in  the 
formation  of  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society,  and  a  declara- 
tion of  its  principles,  drawn  up  by  Garrison,  was  published 
far  and  wide  throughout  the  free  States.2 

In  the  autumn  of  1834  Garrison  was  joined  by  George 
Thompson,  whose  acquaintance  he  had  made  while  visiting 
England,  and  whose  powerful  oratory  had  impressed  him  with 
the  advantages  of  such  a  helper.  And  if  the  plain  solid  state- 
ments of  Garrison  —  for  there  were  no  outbursts  of  oratory  in 
Garrison's  speeches  —  could  produce  such  inflammatory  results, 
it  could  only  be  expected  that  the  withering  sarcasms  and  witty 
shafts  of  Thompson  must  add  fuel  to  the  flame.  It  did  so ;  and 
for  many  months  it  was  not  safe  for  Thompson  to  be  seen  un- 
less well  escorted.  Meetings  were  held  only  with  the  great- 
est difficulty,  and  were  attended  with  tremendous  risks.  One 

1  In  reference  to  this  society,  it  may  be  as  well  to  state  that,  although  projected 
oy  slave-owners  and  their  friends  for  their  own  selfish  ends,  as  herein  explained,  it 
was  the  means  of  founding  the  colony  of  Liberia. 

2  Turn  to  the  article  on  Harriet  B.  Stowe  for  the  effects  of  this  convention. 


WILLIAM    LLOYD   GARRISON.  157 

morning  in  September,  1835,  a  gallows  with  two  ropes  sus- 
pended was  found  erected  in  front  of  Garrison's  door,  one  rope 
being  intended  for  him  and  the  other  for  George  Thompson. 

Soon  after  this  there  occurred  that  memorable  outrage  in 
which  William  Lloyd  Garrison  escaped  with  his  life  only  by  a 
miracle.  A  meeting  was  to  be  held  in  connection  with  the 
Ladies'  Anti-Slavery  Society,  and  George  Thompson  was  ex- 
pected to  be  present.  A  mob  of  upwards  of  five  thousand 
"  gentlemen  of  property  and  standing  "  presented  themselves 
at  the  hall.  Only  thirty  ladies  were  able  to  gain  admittance, 
and  some  of  them  only  by  undergoing  the  most  rude  and  bru- 
tal treatment  from  this  well-dressed  mob.  The  meeting  was 
scarcely  opened  when  the  mayor  entered  in  a  state  of  great 
excitement,  begging  the  ladies  to  adjourn  their  meeting,  as  he 
found  it  impossible  to  disperse  the  mob,  —  a  request  which  was 
at  once  complied  with.  Garrison  had  attended  for  the  purpose 
of  escorting  his  young  wife,  but  with  no  intention  of  taking 
any  part  in  the  meeting.  Thompson  was  not  present ;  and  the 
mob,  being  disappointed  in  not  finding  him,  fixed  upon  Garri- 
son. The  cry  was  raised  of  "  Out  with  him  !  Lynch  him  !  "  A 
room  was  burst  open  in  which  he  had  taken  refuge,  and  at  first  it 
seemed  that  he  would  have  been  thrown  out  of  the  window ;  but 
at  the  suggestion  of  one  of  the  mob  that  he  should  not  be  killed 
outright,  a  rope  was  fastened  round  his  body,  and  he  was  hustled 
out  into  the  street,  where  he  was  hurried  along  towards  the  tar- 
kettle,  which  was  preparing  in  a  neighboring  street.  Brickbats 
and  stones  were  thrown  at  him,  and  his  clothes  were  gradually 
torn  piece  by  piece  from  off  his  body.  Suddenly  some  one  in 
the  crowd  cried  out,  "  Remember  he  is  an  American !  He 
shall  not  be  hurt!"  "No,"  responded  several  voices;  "he 
shall  not  be  hurt !  "  and  for  a  moment  or  two  gentler  counsels 
seemed  to  prevail.  But  only  for  a  moment.  He  was  again 
pounced  upon,  his  clo.thes  by  this  time  being  torn  completely 
from  off  his  body,  and  every  moment  seemed  as  though  it 
would  decide  his  fate,  —  all  this  time  his  face  bearing  an  ex- 
pression of  gentleness  and  benevolence.  He  was  at  length  — 
doubtless  by  the  most  humane  of  the  mob —  conducted  to  the 


158  OUR  GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 

office  of  the  mayor,  where  by  the  kindness  of  several  gentle- 
men he  was  re-clothed.  The  mayor,  in  order  to  save  him  from 
further  violence,  ordered  him  to  be  conveyed  to  prison,  where 
on  the  walls  of  his  cell  he  inscribed  the  following  words : 
"  William  Lloyd  Garrison  was  put  into  this  cell  on  Monday 
afternoon,  October  21,  1835,  to  save  him  from  the  violence  of 
a  respectable  mob,  who  sought  to  destroy  him  for  preaching  the 
abominable  and  dangerous  doctrine  that  all  men  are  created 
equal,  and  that  all  oppression  is  odious  in  the  sight  of  God." 

"  The  truth  that  we  utter,"  he  afterwards  wrote,  in  reviewing 
this  transaction,  "  is  impalpable,  yet  real.  It  cannot  be  thrust 
down  by  brute  force,  nor  pierced  with  a  dagger,  nor  bribed 
with  gold,  nor  overcome  by  the  application  of  a  coat  of  tar 
and  feathers." 

Garrison  had  been  an  early  friend  of  the  poet  Whittier,  and 
had  encouraged  his  first  efforts  in  poetic  composition.  Whitt»er 
requited  this  friendship  in  his  memorable  apostrophe  to  the 
great  emancipator,  which  concludes  as  follows :  — 

"  Go  on,  —  the  dagger's  point  may  glare 

Amid  thy  pathway's  gloom, — 
The  fate  which  sternly  threatens  there 

Is  glorious  martyrdom  ! 
Then  onward  with  a  martyr's  zeal ; 

And  wait  thy  sure  reward 
When  man  to  man  no  more  shall  kneel, 

And  God  alone  be  Lord  ! 

For  years  the  advocacy  of  emancipation  was  continued 
amidst  the  greatest  obstacles,  with  now  and  again  scenes  of 
violence  only  a  little  less  atrocious  than  those  we  have  re- 
corded, till  at  length  the  majority  of  people  in  the  Northern 
States  were  found  to  approve  of  anti-slavery  principles.  It  was 
then  that  the  slave-owners,  finding  the  Northern  States  against 
them,  began  to  talk  of  secession.  And  when  this  event  at 
length  took  place,  and  the  Civil  War  was  entered  upon,  the 
liberation  of  the  slaves  seemed  to  many  farther  off  than  ever. 
When  at  length,  on  the  first  day  of  January,  1863, — that  be- 
ing also  the  thirty-second  anniversary  of  the  first  issue  of  the 


WILLIAM    LLOYD   GARRISON.  159 

"  Liberator,"  —  by  the  proclamation  of  President  Lincoln,  negro 
slavery  ceased  to  exist  throughout  the  United  States  of  Amer- 
ica, no  man  could  have  been  more  amazed  at  the  wonderful 
course  events  had  taken  than  he  whose  life  had  been  spent 
in  so  educating  the  people  as  to  make  such  a  proclamation 
possible. 

William  Lloyd  Garrison  was  intensely  a  man  of  peace.  He 
had  always  condemned  physical  violence,  and  would  never 
allow  it  to  be  resorted  to  on  his  behalf.  He  would  have  left 
nothing  undone  to  have  liberated  the  slaves  without  it;  but  the 
slaveholders  themselves  ruled  that  such  was  not  to  be. 

Soon  after  the  close  of  the  war  Garrison  made  a  tour  through 
some  of  the  Southern  States ;  and  on  more  than  one  occasion 
he  had  the  inexpressible  pleasure  of  addressing  large  audiences 
from  the  auction  block,  never  more  to  be  desecrated  .again  for 
the  vile  purposes  of  slavery. 

In  the  year  1867  he  again  visited  England,  and  at  a  public 
breakfast  given  in  his  honor  at  St.  James's  Hall,  at  which  were 
present  the  late  venerable  Earl  Russell,  J.  Stuart  Mill,  John 
Bright,  and  other  leading  statesmen  and  philanthropists,  he 
made  use  of  these  words :  "  I  have  been  here  three  times  before 
on  anti-slavery  missions,  and  wherever  I  travelled  I  was  always 
exultingly  told,  '  Slaves  cannot  breathe  in  England ! '  Now  I 
am  at  liberty  to  say,  and  I  came  over  with  the  purpose  to  say 
it,  '  Slaves  cannot  breathe  in  America !  '  And  so  England  and 
America  stand  side  by  side  in  the  cause  of  negro  emancipation ; 
and  side  by  side  may  they  stand  in  all  that  is  noble  and  good, 
leading  the  way  gloriously  in  the  world's  redemption." 

The  last  few  years  of  this  great  and  good  man's  life  were 
spent  in  well-earned  ease  and  repose.  In  1868  his  friends 
raised  for  him  a  national  testimonial  of  $30,000.  Yet  he  con- 
tinued to  take  a  lively  interest  in  all  the  vital  questions  of  the 
day,  giving  expression  to  his  opinions  from  time  to  time,  both 
from  the  platform  and  the  press.  In  the  summer  of  1878  he 
again  visited  England,  in  the  hope  that  the  change  might  re- 
cruit his  failing  strength;  but  it  does  not  seem  to  have  pro- 
duced any  lasting  benefit. 

11 


I<5o  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

He  was  of  a  most  gentle  and  lovable  disposition,  forgiving 
and  forbearing  even  to  those  who  were  seeking  his  life,  and  was 
able  to  say,  "  Even  while  the  Southern  slaveholders  were  seek- 
ing my  destruction,  I  never  for  a  moment  entertained  any  other 
feeling  towards  them  than  an  earnest  desire  under  God  to  de- 
liver them  from  an  awful  curse  and  a  deadly  sin."  Such  was 
the  mild  and  benignant  expression  of  his  countenance  that  it 
has  been  said  that  a  stranger  seeing  his  portrait  exposed  for 
sale  in  a  shop  window  purchased  it,  as  the  most  benevolent 
and  apostolic  face  he  had  ever  sejpn.  Nothing  is  more  certain 
than  that  agitation  was  against  every  instinct  of  his  nature ;  and 
it  was  only  his  great  love  for  humanity  and  indignation  against 
tyranny  and  oppression  that  nerved  him  to  his  self-imposed 
task.  On  the  24th  of  May,  1879,  he  departed  full  of  years, 
honored  and  loved  by  his  countrymen  of  every  race  and  color, 
and  leaving  behind  him  one  of  the  grandest  examples  of  heroic 
courage,  steadfastness  to  principles,  and  unflinching  zeai  in  a 
noble  and  benevolent  cause,  ever  recorded. 

His  funeral  was  indeed  a  remarkable  scene.  The  venerable 
poet  Whittier,  besides  many  of  the  most  distinguished  of  the 
dead  philanthropists,  co-workers  in  the  same  cause,  stood 
around  the  bier.  Wendell  Phillips  surpassed  himself.  Looking 
into  the  coffin  in  which  all  that  was  mortal  of  William  Lloyd 
Garrison  was  lying,  the  great  orator  exclaimed,  "  Farewell  for  a 
little  while,  noblest  of  Christian  men !  "  Certainly  no  single 
life  affords  a  higher  example  of  the  mighty  power  of  the  right 
to  gain  the  victory  over  the  wrong,  than  this  most  loyal  and 
steadfast  one  has  left  us. 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  163 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

[BORN  1809.    DIED  1865.] 

~"*HE  eminent  man  whose  career  forms  our  present  study 
•*•  appears  in  a  singular  variety  of  interesting  situations.  He 
literally  filled  many  parts,  from  rail-splitter,  pilot,  postmaster, 
to  legislator,  and  finally  President  of  the  United  States.  In  the 
old-world  countries,  particularly  in  England,  such  possibilities, 
how  common  soever  in  the  past,  are  most  rare,  and  year  by 
year  are  becoming  rarer;  such  transformations  in  their  first 
aspect  seem  like  a  page  from  "  Gil  Bias."  In  young  America 
they  occur  constantly.  As  an  instance  of  splendid  but  not  ig- 
noble "  rising  in  the  world,"  or  what  we  somewhat  loosely  call 
self-help;  as  an  able  ruler  and  a  pure  patriot;  as  a  philanthro- 
pist, emancipating  millions  of  slaves,  —  in  these  public  char- 
acters, not  to  mention  the  solid  virtues  and  humanizing,  kindly 
charms  of  his  private  life,  the  "  Martyred  President "  is  a  figure 
great  and  notable. 

Before  proceeding  with  the  main  incidents  of  President  Lin- 
coln's life,  we  will  advert,  in  brief,  to  the  origin  and  progress  of 
slavery  in  America.  The  English  slave-trade  began  with  Sir 
John  Hawkins  in  1562.  He  had  obtained  leave  from  Queen 
Elizabeth  to  carry  Africans  to  America  with  their  own  free  con- 
sent ;  but  he  forced  them  on  board  his  ships,  not  without  slaugh- 
ter, and  escaped  without  punishment ;  nay,  a  few  years  later,  he 
received  high  honor  from  the  Queen.  When  Virginia  attained 
a  fixed  condition  as  a  colony  —  about  1615,  when  fifty  acres  of 
land  were  assigned  to  every  emigrant  and  his  heirs  —  the  culti- 
vation of  tobacco  instantly  followed.  Five  years  later,  a  Dutch 
ship  brought  a  cargo  of  negroes  from  the  coast  of  Africa, 
whom  the  Virginians  joyfully  received  as  slaves.  But  slavery 
had  no  legal  sanction.  Once  introduced,  it  became  chronic ; 


164  OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

children  and  grandchildren  were  born  in  slavery.  In  1645, 
when  slaves  were  brought  to  Boston,  the  magistracy  committed 
the  sellers  to  prison,  sharply  denounced  their  crime,  and  or- 
dered the  slaves  to  be  sent  home  at  the  public  expense.  Negro 
slavery  became,  however,  domesticated  in  all  the  American  col- 
onies, nor  did  it  wholly  cease  in  the  northern  section  until  after 
the  Revolutionary  War.  At  the  era  of  American  Independence 
South  Carolina  and  Georgia  were  the  chief  slaveholding  com- 
munities. Through  the  immense  impulse  given  to  cotton  culture 
in  the  South1  the  number  of  slaves  was  nearly  doubled  in  twenty 
years,  —  from  1790  to  1810,  —  going  from  about  700,000  to 
1,200,000  souls.  At  length,  in  1808,  Congress  forbade  the  im- 
portation of  Africans.  By  cutting  off  this  source  of  supply  the 
increase  was  limited  to  what  slaves  were  bred  within  the  "States 
themselves;  and  in  forty  years  more  (1860),' the  period  of  the 
Civil  War,  the  whole  number  of  slaves  was  only  a  little  more 
than  4,000,000.  But  the  political  complications  arising  from 
the  nation  having  gradually  become  half  slave  and  half  free 
were  assuming  the  gravest  character;  and  the  rupture  between 
the  sections  came  at  last  exactly  where  it  had  begun  to  fore- 
shadow itself  seventy-three  years  earlier,  namely,  upon  the 
question  of  introducing  slavery  into  the  free  territory  of  the 
Union.  The  sagacious  framers  of  the  Constitution  did  not  de- 
sire this;  and  in  the  celebrated  Ordinance  of  1787,  framed 
for  the  government  of  the  unorganized  territories,  slavery  was 
expressly  forbidden.  Then,  in  1803,  came  the  acquisition  of 
Louisiana  with  its  slaveholding  population.  Then,  in  1820, 
the  Missouri  Compromise,  allowing  slavery  in  Missouri,  but 
prohibiting  it  north  of  the  since  famous  geographical  limit  of 
36°  30'.  Then  came  the  contest  over  the  admission  of  Texas 
with  a  constitution  providing  for  a  similar  division  into  slave 
and  free  territory ;  then  over  California,  which  indeed  came 
into  the  Union  free,  but  simultaneously  with  the  enactment 
by  Congress  of  the  iniquitous  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  by  which 
slaves  escaping  into  free  States  could  be  seized  wherever  found 
and  sent  back  into  slavery.  Ever  since  the  Mexican  War 

1  See  our  article  on  Eli  Whitney. 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  »  165 

had  been  waged  for  the  extension  of  slavery  (an  end  accom- 
plished by  the  admission  of  Texas),  public  sentiment  at  the 
North  had  been  consolidating  upon  the  dictum  "  No  more  slave 
territory."  The  Fugitive  Slave  Act  still  further  solidified  this 
feeling.  The  rendition  of  slaves  was  resisted  ;  and  presently  the 
people,  whom  respect  for  the  Constitution  of  the  nation  had  so 
long  held  back,  began  to  form  a  political  party  under  the  omi- 
nous name  of  "  Free  Soil."  Events  then  hastened  on.  When, 
in  1854,  the  provisions  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  were  re- 
pealed, the  end  was  ominously  near.  Again  the  South  demanded 
the  admission  of  Kansas  as  a  slave  State.  A  struggle  began 
within  the  borders  of  this  territory,  which  culminated  in  the  ad- 
mission of  Kansas  as  a  free  State,  and  in  the  election  of  a  "  Free 
Soil,"  or  "  Republican,"  president  The  South,  seeing  its  pres- 
tige in  the  nation  gone,  then  determined  upon  secession.  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  was  the  president  who  had  been  chosen,  and  who 
was  now  confronted  by  the  gravest  crisis  that  had  occurred  in 
the  nation's  history.  Fortunate,  indeed,  was  it  for  the  Amer- 
ican Republic  that,  under  God,  the  people  had  made  choice  of 
this  man  to  stand  at  the  helm  of  State !  We  will  now  review 
the  career  of  Lincoln. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  sixteenth  President  of  the  United  States,  was 
born  at  Hardin  or  Larue,  in  Kentucky,  Feb.  12,  1809.  His  an- 
cestors, who  were  for  some  generations  Quakers,  belonged 
to  Virginia  and  to  Kentucky.  His  father,  Thomas  Lincoln  of 
Virginia,  was  twice  married,  —  first  in  1806  to  Nancy  Hanks, 
the  mother  of  Abraham,  and  afterwards,  in  1819,  to  a  widow  and 
old  neighbor  named  Johnston.  With  the  stepmother  Abraham 
always  maintained  the  kindest  relations.  In  1816  the  family 
removed  to  what  is  now  Spencer  County,  Indiana,  settling  in 
the  forest.  Abraham  worked  with  his  father  in  clearing  up  the 
new  farm,  being  unusually  vigorous  for  his  age.  His  mother 
could  read,  but  not  write;  his  father  could  do  neither;  but 
young  Abraham  received  one  year  of  the  most  meagre  school- 
ing, which  was  all  that  he  ever  enjoyed.  Still  the  mother's  in- 
fluence may  be  guessed  from  Lincoln's  remark  when  President : 
"  All  that  I  am,  all  that  I  hope  to  be,  I  owe  to  rny  sainted 


166  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

mother."  He  grew  up  in  the  land  of  free  labor  in  a  log  cabin, 
passing,  nevertheless,  meditative  and  fruitful  hours  in  that  soli- 
tude which,  as  Gibbon  finely  says,  is  the  school  of  genius.  He 
became  expert  at  figures.  His  books  were  few:  "^sop's 
Fables,"  the  Bible,  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  "  Burns's  Poems," 
"  Robinson  Crusoe,"  and  a  "  Life  of  Washington  "  are  named, 
together  with  the  "  Revised  Statutes  of  Indiana."  It  was  his 
custom  to  keep  a  note-book,  in  which  to  jot  down  his  favorite 
passages.  In  after  years  he  exhibited  a  large  share  of  native 
and  incommunicable  eloquence,  —  as  conspicuously  in  the  ora- 
tion pronounced  over  the  men  who  had  fallen  at  Gettysburg,— 
but  his  choice  and  collocation  of  words,  terse,  pithy,  idiomatic, 
must  have  been  greatly  moulded  by  the  chances  of  this  early 
reading.  The  Latin  element  in  the  language,  if  predominant,  is 
pompous,  as  in  Johnson ;  the  mixture  of  Latin  and  English 
derivatives,  as  in  De  Quincey,  is  English  at  its  best ;  the  Saxon 
(so  called),  as  in  Defoe  or  the  Bible,  is  the  general  dialect  of 
home,  of  direct  address,  of  popular  appeal,  —  as  we  find  it  in 
Mr.  Bright  or  Mr.  Spurgeon,  and  largely,  we  believe,  in  Lincoln. 
His  education,  using  the  word  in  its  strictest  sense  of  training, 
was,  as  George  Bancroft  puts  it,  "  thoroughly  American ;  "  and 
he  could  have  found  it  in  no  other  country  on  the  earth. 

In  1825  he  was  employed,  at  six  dollars  a  month,  to  manage 
a  ferry  across  the  Ohio.  He  was  famous  as  a  story-teller,  as  an 
amateur  orator,  and  for  a  certain  ability  in  playful  doggerel  sat- 
ire, and  in  addition  for  his  skill  as  a  wrestler.  He  was  six  feet 
four  inches  high.  In  1828  he  went  to  New  Orleans  as  "bow 
hand"  on  a  flatboat  with  a  cargo  of  produce.  I»  1830  the 
family  moved  to  Illinois,  clearing  there  fifteen  acres  of  land,  for 
the  fencing  of  which  Abraham  memorably  split  the  rails.  In 
1831,  aided  by  his  half-brother  and  brother-in-law,  he  built  a 
flatboat  and  navigated  it  to  New  Orleans,  rescued  the  boat  and 
cargo  from  grave  peril,  and  afterwards  obtained  a  patent  for 
"  an  improved  method  of  lifting  vessels  over  shoals."  On  this 
trip  Lincoln  for  the  first  time  at  New  Orleans  saw  slaves  chained 
and  scourged,  —  a  spectacle  which  powerfully  intensified  his 
detestation  of  slavery. 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  167 

In  1832  we  find  Lincoln  clerk  in  a  store  till  the  bankruptcy 
of  his  employer;  pilot  of  the  first  steamboat  on  the  Sangamon  ; 
captain  of  volunteers  in  the  "Black  Hawk"  war.  Then  he  kept 
a  store  and  was  postmaster  of  New  Salem.  His  partner  proved 
a  drunkard,  and  died;  the  firm  failed,  but  Lincoln  —  and  this 
is  certainly  noteworthy  —  paid  the  debts,  discharging  the  last 
one  so  many  years  afterwards  as  1849.  In  1834  he  set  up  as 
surveyor,  but  his  instruments  were  sold  under  a  sheriff's  execu- 
tion. Truly,  if  ever  any  man  was  "  Jack  of  all  trades,"  Lincoln 
was  that  one ;  and  generally  he  contrived  to  get  along  quite 
comfortably  and  creditably.  Strictly  speaking,  perhaps,  he 
was  not  a  man  of  genius,  though  possessing  a  pronounced  in- 
dividuality; but  he  had  wonderful  ability,  he  had  versatility 
and  tact;  he  had  the  infinite  opportunities  of  a  new  and  not 
over-populated  country,  —  room  to  breathe  in;  and  he  also  had 
a  splendid  physical  constitution.  He  was  a  notable  wrestler  in 
every  way.  At  twenty-five  he  took  a  "  new  departure."  He 
was  elected  to  the  Legislature  of  Illinois,  where  he  served  eight 
years.  Meanwhile,  according  to  Bancroft,  he  had  not  gone 
deeply  into  literature,  adding  to  his  Defoe  and  Bunyan  "  nothing 
but  Shakspeare's  plays."  Clearly  he  had  no  time  whatever  to 
spare ;  yet  for  all,  particularly  for  a  public  man,  the  lack  of  lit- 
erature must  be  held  a  serious  drawback.  But  Shakspeare,  in- 
telligently read,  implies  a  good  deal;  and  when  to  this  is  added 
Lincoln's  great  familiarity  with,  and  partiality  for  the  Bible,  he 
must  be  held  to  have  laid  an  unsurpassed  foundation. 

In  1837,  being  aged  twenty-seven,  he  was  admitted  to  the 
bar,  and  opened  an  office  at  Springfield,  where  he  soon  became 
noted  for  his  ability  in  jury  trials.  In  November,  1842,  he  mar- 
ried Mary,  daughter  of  the  Hon.  Robert  S.  Todd,  of  Lexington, 
Kentucky.  In  1846  he  was  elected  to  Congress  by  a  majority  of 
fifteen  hundred,  his  competitor  on  the  Democratic  ticket  (i.  e. 
the  Southern  and  pro-slavery  side)  being  the  Rev.  Peter  Cart- 
wright.  In  this  Congress  Lincoln  was  the  only  "  Whig "  can- 
didate from  Illinois.  He  vigorously  opposed  the  administration 
of  President  Polk,  denouncing  the  war  with  Mexico  as  unjust. 
When  the  President  declared  that  the  Mexicans  "  had  invaded 


168  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

our  territory  and  shed  the  blood  of  our  citizens  on  our  own 
soil,"  Lincoln  introduced  the  famous  "spot"  resolutions,  asking 
the  President  to  name  the  place  where  the  alleged  outrage  had 
been  committed.  It  was  a  clever  and  characteristic  way  of  burst- 
ing a  rhetorical  bubble.  Thus,  on  his  first  appearance  on  the 
stage  of  the  national  Congress,  did  Lincoln  stand  forth  for  reason 
and  humanity. 

In  Congress,  moreover,  in  1849,  he  introduced  a  bill  for  abol- 
ishing slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia;  he  voted  for  the 
reception  of  antislavery  petitions ;  he  voted  nearly  forty  times 
in  favor  of  the  principle  of  the  famous  Jefferson  proviso.  He 
declined  to  become  a  candidate  for  re-election.  In  1849,  again 
he  sought  eagerly  but  unsuccessfully  the  place  of  Commis- 
sioner of  the  Land  Office,  and  he  refused  an  appointment  that 
would  have  transferred  his  residence  to  Oregon.  In  July,  1852, 
he  delivered  at  Springfield  a  eulogy  on  Henry  Clay.  He  be- 
came the  acknowledged  leader  of  his  party  in  Illinois.  In  1858, 
as  the  rival  of  Douglas  at  Springfield,  he  significantly  declared : 
"  This  Union  cannot  permanently  endure,  half  slave  and  half 
free;  the  Union  will  not  be  dissolved,  but  the  house  will  cease  to 
be  divided,"  -—  a  happy  prediction,  which  he  powerfully  aided  to 
accomplish.  He  also  declared  with  equal  force :  "  I  am  im- 
pliedly,  if  not  expressly,  pledged  to  a  belief  in  the  right  and 
duty  of  Congress  to  prohibit  slavery  in  all  the  United  States 
territories."  Finally,  in  May,  1860,  the  Republican  National 
Convention,  sitting  at  Chicago,  nominated  him  for  the  Presi- 
dency. He  was  opposed  in  the  Democratic  and  slavery  inter- 
est by  his  old  rival  Douglas,  who,  in  the  heated  contest  that 
ensued,  had  taunted  Lincoln  with  his  lowly  origin  and  occupa- 
tions, —  taunts  met  with  humorous  rejoinders  and  keen  expos- 
ures of  sophistry.  After  a  bitter  contest  Lincoln  was  elected 
President;  and  it  is  certainly  instructive  to  know  that,  of  all  the 
four  candidates,  Douglas  found  himself  last,  —  for  it  was  Douglas 
who  had  carried  through  Congress,  against  vehement  opposition, 
the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise. 

Very  incensed  were  the  slavery  men.  At  Harrisburg,  on  his 
way  to  Washington,  Lincoln  was  informed  of  a  plot  to  assassi- 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  169 

nate  him  on  his  passage  through  Baltimore,  and  at  the  earnest 
solicitation  of  his  friends  he  journeyed  by  an  earlier  train  and 
during  the  night.  He  was  inaugurated  as  President,  March  4, 
1860.  Already  seven  States  had  formally  seceded  from  the 
Union;  ultimately  four  more  followed  them.  These  seven 
States  sent  commissioners  to  negotiate  concerning  the  difficul- 
ties;  but  Mr.  Seward,  the  Secretary  of  State,  by  direction  of 
Lincoln,  declined  to  receive  them.  It  was  not  admitted  that 
they  had  any  right  whatever  to  withdraw  from  the  Union  other- 
wise than  "  with  the  co'nsent  and  concert  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  to  be  given  through  a  national  convention."  Soon 
came  the  bombardment  of  Fort  Sumter,  which  precipitated  the 
war  between  North  and  South. 

Into  the  details  of  that  struggle  we  need  not  enter.  They 
belong  to  the  historian  and  annalist,  not  to  the  writer  of  a  bio- 
graphical sketch.  The  President,  with  firmness,  resisted  the 
well-meant  but  somewhat  intrusive  efforts  at  mediation  pro- 
jected by  England  in  concert  with  France.  The  business  of  the 
blockade  and  the  "  Alabama,"  and  the  seizure  of  the  commis- 
sioners, Mason  and  Slidell,  from  the  "  Trent,"  created  stir  and 
annoyance  enough  in  England  at  the  time.  Happily,  however, 
Englishmen  were  divided  during  the  progress  of  the  war ;  and 
there  are  now  none  of  any  party  who  regret  its  grand  result,  the 
extinction  of  slavery,  —  that  "execrable  sum  of  all  villanies," 
as  the  venerable  Wesley  described  it.  Lincoln  ever  viewed  it 
as  such,  if  occasionally  he  placed  the  stability  of  the  Union  first, 
and  the  fall  of  slavery  second  in  his  regards.  Great  firmness 
and  dignity,  too,  were  shown  in  the  refusal  to  recognize  the 
empire  of  Maximilian  in  Mexico. 

In  October,  1864,  Lincoln  for  the  second  time  was  elected 
President.  "  With  malice  towards  none,  with  charity  for  all, 
with  firmness  in  the  right  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us 
finish  the  work  we  are  in,  to  bind  up  the  nation's  wounds,"  - 
such  was  the  language  of  his  address.  His  work,  indeed,  already 
neared  its  completion.  He  visited  the  army,  remained  with  it 
till  the  fall  of  Richmond,  then  suddenly  was  recalled  to  Wash- 
ington by  tidings  of  an  accident  to  Secretary  Seward.  On  the 


I/O  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

evening  of  Good  Friday  he  visited  Ford's  Theatre,  accompanied 
by  Mrs.  Lincoln  and  a  few  friends.  Shortly  after  ten  an  ob- 
scure actor,  John  Wilkes  Booth,  entered  the  box,  having  first 
barred  the  passage,  approached  the  President  from  behind,  put 
a  pistol  to  his  head  and  fired,  exclaiming,  "  Sic  semper  tyran- 
nis;  the  South  is  avenged."  Lincoln's  head  fell  forward,  his 
eyes  closed,  and  he  never  regained  consciousness,  dying  on  the 
following  morning.  His  body  was  embalmed,  lay  in  state  in 
the  Capitol  and  in  various  cities,  and  the  interment  took  place 
at  Springfield,  May  4,  1865. 

Lincoln,  in  the  eloquent  words'  of  Bancroft,  "  finished  a  work 
which  all  time  cannot  overthrow.  .  .  .  He  was  followed  by  the 
sorrow  of  his  country  to  his  resting-place  in  the  heart  of  the 
Mississippi  Valley,  to  be  remembered  through  all  time  by  his 
countrymen,  and  by  all  the  peoples  of  the  world."  To  him, 
too,  applies  aptly  the  eulogy  pronounced  by  the  historian  of  the 
Roman  Republic,  Dr.  Adam  Ferguson,  on  Cato  of  Utica,  who 
"was  naturally  warm  and  affectionate  in  his  temper;  compre- 
hensive, impartial,  and  strongly  possessed  with  the  love  of  man- 
kind. In  his  conduct  he  probably  became  independent  of 
passion  of  any  sort,  and  chose  what  was  just  on  its  own  ac- 
count." Altogether,  Lincoln  may  justly  claim  high  place,  not 
only  as  an  American  patriot,  but  as  a  benefactor  of  mankind. 
His  name  is  enshrined  in  the  hearts  of  the  freedmen  as  that  of 
their  predestined  deliverer  out  of  bondage. 


ANDREW    BELL. 

[BORN  1753.    DIED  1832.] 

THE  Madras  system  of  education,  which  at  the  beginning  of 
the  present  century  was  the  great  subject  of  discussion 
among  educators,  was  a  real  novelty,  but  it  was  achievable, — 
it  had  been  tested  by  facts.     Its  success  was  manifest ;  and  what 


ANDREW     BELL. 


ANDREW    BELL.  1/3 

chiefly  strengthened  its  claim  on  public  attention  was  the  readi- 
ness with  .which  its  results  could  be  obtained  by  all  who  fol- 
lowed the  precepts  of  the  inventor.  Pestalozzi  had  declared 
that  "  anybody  could  teach  anything,"  and  Jacotot  had  put 
forth  the  astounding  paradox  that  anybody  can  teach,  and, 
moreover,  can  teach  that  which  he  does  not  know !  But  the 
great  drawback  to  each  of  these  latter  systems  was  the  fact  that 
the  inventor's  personal  enthusiasm  was  the  main  secret  of  suc- 
cess. Others  tried  them,  and  tried  in  vain.  One  by  one 
almost  all  the  various  Pestalozzian  institutions  have  given  way 
to  other  establishments,  while  the  trick  of  Jacotot,  so  plausible 
in  his  own  hands,  is  now  almost  forgotten.  Dr.  Bell,  more 
reasonably  and  practically,  professed  to  show  a  plan  by  which 
a  school  under  the  superintendence-  of  a  master  should  teach 
itself. 

Andrew  Bell  was  born  at  St.  Andrews,  Scotland,  in  1753,  and 
was  educated  at  the  ancient  university  of  that  city.  Early  in 
life  he  went  out  to  America,  but  after  a  short  stay  returned, 
and  took  orders  in  the  Scottish  Episcopal  Church.  His  first 
appointment  was  to  a  curacy  at  Leith.  The  work,  however,  dis- 
appointed him,  and  in  1787  he  sailed  for  India.  His  intention 
was  to  devote  himself  to  lecturing  on  natural  philosophy  and 
other  scientific  subjects,  for  which  his  university  education  had 
fully  qualified  him.  On  his  arrival  at  Madras  he  met  with  great 
encouragement,  to  use  his  own  words,  —  "in  the  line  of  the 
Church."  Among  other  offices  to  which  he  was  appointed  was 
that  of  chaplain  to  the  garrison,  and  here  it  was  that  he  first 
displayed  his  inventive  genius  in  the  way  of  education.  Some 
time  before  his  arrival  a  school  for  educating  the  orphan  chil- 
dren of  European  soldiers  had  been  established  at  Madras,  and 
to  Dr.  Bell,  as  chaplain,  was  intrusted  its  superintendence  and 
management.  For  this  work  a  good  salary  was  offered  him ; 
but  payment  he  entirely  declined,  considering  that  instruction 
to  the  young  was  one  of  the  duties  of  his  office  as  a  clergy- 
man. His  difficulties  on  commencing  the  task  were  immense. 
The  children  were  half-caste,  of  the  weakest  possible  grade  in 
moral  and  intellectual  faculties,  and  thus  calculated  to  try  to 


1/4  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

the  utmost  the  patience  of  the  keenly  intellectual  and  restless- 
minded  Scotchman ;  while  the  teachers  were  obstinate,  and  so 
much  oppressed  by  the  lethargy  incident  to  a  tropical  climate 
that  they  refused  to  carry  out  the  plans  he  proposed.  The 
position  was  one  which  demanded  the  utmost  tact  and  knowl- 
edge of  human  character;  and  yet,  with  possession  of  both 
these  uncommon  qualifications,  Dr.  Bell  was  on  the  point  of 
failure.  Thinking  over  the  apparently  insuperable  difficulties 
by  which  he  was  beset,  he  happened  during  a  morning  ride  to 
pass  by  a  Malabar  school,  when  he  noticed  the  children  seated 
on  the  ground  writing  in  the  sand  with  their  fingers.  He  has- 
tened home,  repeating  the  idea  of  Archimedes,  "  I  have  it  now," 
and  gave  immediate  orders  to  the  teachers  of  the  lowest  classes 
to  teach  the  alphabet  in  the  same  manner,  in  sand  strewn  upon 
a  board.  With  apparent  readiness,  but  real  disinclination,  the 
plan  was  tried.  But  to  the  doctor's  surprise  it  utterly  failed, 
and  upon  being  pressed  to  renew  their  efforts  the  masters 
refused  point  blank,  declaring  the  thing  to  be  impossible.  So, 
despairing  of  help  from  his  assistant  masters,  he  bethought 
himself  of  employing  a  child  on  whose  fidelity  and  skill  he 
could  rely  to  teach  the  alphabet  class  in  the  manner  he  had 
suggested.  Perhaps  it  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  record  the 
name  of  this  first  monitor  in  the  system  so  famous  in  the  annals 
of  elementary  education.  He  was  called  John  Frisken.  ,  He 
was  the  son  of  a  soldier,  and  at  the  time  of  his  appointment 
only  eight  years  old.  The  doctor  gave  him  such  instructions 
as  he  deemed  necessary,  and  told  him  that  he  should  hold  him 
answerable  for  success.  And  success  followed.  This  mere 
child  effected  without  difficulty  what  the  class-master  had  de- 
clared to  be  impossible.  Young  as  he  was,  he  was  appointed 
permanent  teacher  of  the  class,  and  Dr.  Bell  placed  other  boys 
as  assistants  in  the  lower  classes,  giving  to  Frisken  the  superin- 
tendence of  the  whole.  The  same  rapid  progress  and  the 
same  brilliant  success  attended  this  second  experiment.  The 
result  was  decisive,  and  by  degrees  the  delighted  chaplain 
applied  his  monitorial  method  to  the  whole  school.  Masters, 
such  as  they  had  been,  were  converted  into  overseers  rather 


ANDREW   BELL.  1/5 

than  teachers,  the  first  principles  of  what  afterwards  developed 
into  the  pupil-teacher  scheme  were  established,  and  Dr.  Bell 
became  the  founder  of  the  so-called  "  Madras,"  or  monitorial, 
system  of  education. 

This  was  in  1791.  Three  years  afterwards,  Dr.  Bell  wrote  to 
a  friend :  "  The  school  promises  fair  to  present  me  with  the  sole 
reward  I  have  sought  of  all  my  labors  with  my  young  pupils, 
by  giving  to  society  an  annual  crop  of  good  and  useful  sub- 
jects, many  of  them  rescued  from  the  lowest  state  of  depravity 
and  wretchedness."  As  to  acquirements,  the  boys  very  soon 
surpassed  their  former  masters,  gaining  sound  instruction  in 
arithmetic,  book-keeping,  grammar,  geography,  geometry, 
mensuration,  navigation,  and  astronomy, — a  pretty  fair  cur- 
riculum for  boys  of  the  "  weakest  possible  grade  in  moral  and 
intellectual  faculties." 

On  learning  the  success  of  Bell's  experiment,  persons  in- 
terested in  education  in  Europe  applied  to  him  for  advice  or 
suggestions.  Among  the  rest  Mr.  Edgeworth,  the  well-known 
writer  on  education,  applied  to  him  for  advice  with  regard  to 
the  proper  selection  of  books  for  instruction.  Dr.  Bell  replied 
that  he  could  not  recommend  books  to  a  man  who  had  read 
so  much,  adding,  "  There  is  only  one  book  which  I  take  the 
liberty  to  recommend.  It  is  a  book  in  which  I  have  learned 
all  I  have  taught,  and  infinitely  more,  —  a  book  open  to  all 
alike  and  level  to  every  capacity,  which  only  requires  time, 
patience,  and  perseverance,  with  a  dash  of  enthusiasm,  in  the 
perusal,  —  I  mean  a  school  full  of  children" 

The  immediate  effect  upon  the  pupils  themselves  of  the 
Madras  Orphan  Asylum  was  an  eager  demand  for  them  to  fill 
important  situations.  The  school  became  not  only  popular 
but  famous,  and  the  Government  took  measures  for  extending 
its  system  of  teaching  to  the  other  Presidencies.  Meantime, 
as  the  doctor's  health  had  begun  to  suffer  from  the  effects  of 
the  climate,  he  made  arrangements  for  returning  to  Europe. 
On  his  arrival  in  England  he  was  appointed  to  the  rectory  of 
Swanage,  in  Dorset,  and  at  once  devoted  himself  to  the  forma- 
tion of  Sunday-schools  on  the  Madras  plan.  He  was  again 


I/J  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

opposed,  as  he  had  been  in  India,  by  those  who  should  have 
been  his  best  helpers,  and  it  was  only  by  dint  of  the  most  de- 
termined perseverance  that  he  overcame  the  difficulties  thrown 
in  his  way.  His  system  certainly  obtained  an  introduction 
into  several  towns,  but  it  was  worked  only  in  a  languid  man- 
ner. The  usual  fate  of  personal  methods  seemed  destined  to 
attach  itself  to  this  also.  Fortunately,  however,  for  its  vital- 
ity, a  rival  system,  supposed  by  many  to  be  identical  with 
his  own,  brought  the  Anglo-Indian  educationist  prominently 
before  the  public.  Controversy  began,  and  the  respective 
claims  of  the  Madras  and  of  the  Lancaster  systems  were 
warmly  urged  by  their  excited  partisans.  Dr.  Bell's  own  opin- 
ion of  Lancaster  is  expressed  in  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Trimmer,  — 
a  lady  who  had  some  fame  at  the  time  as  a  compiler  of  school- 
books,  and  whose  well-meant  but  somewhat  unpractical  epit- 
omes were  then  great  favorites  in  ladies'  boarding-schools. 
With  considerably  more  zeal  than  discretion,  this  lady  had 
called  the  doctor's  attention  to  what  she  characterized  as  schis- 
matic endeavors  on  the  part  of  Lancaster  to  overturn  the  Es- 
tablished Church,  and  to  rob  the  inventor  of  the  new  method 
of  education  of  his  influence  by  "  building  on  his  foundation." 
"  Ever  since  I  conversed  with  him,"  writes  Dr.  Bell,  "  and  read 
some  of  his  familiar  letters,  I  have  suspected  that  he  has  much 
assistance  in  his  published  works  of  every  kind.  He  is  illiter- 
ate and  ignorant,  with  a  brazen  front,  consummate  assurance, 
and  the  most  artful  and  plausible  address,  not  without  ability 
and  ingenuity,  heightened  in  its  effects  under  the  Quaker 
guise."  At  the  same  time  he  gives  his  rival  credit  for  much 
originality  both  in  the  applying  and  improving  of  the  Madras 
system.  "  No  one,"  says  his  biographer,  Mr.  Southey,  "  could 
have  been  more  liberal  than  Dr.  Bell  was  in  acknowledging 
Lancaster's  merits.  .  .  .  His  zeal,  ingenuity,  and  perseverance 
deserved  high  praise,  and  this  they  obtained."  However  dis- 
posed the  inventor  of  the  new  system  might  be  to  rest  con- 
tent with  his  clerical  duties,  the  indefatigable  Mrs.  Trimmer 
would  not  permit  him.  At  length,  not  only  he,  but  the  whole 
Church  party,  was  fairly  aroused,  and  Church  and  chapel  ranked 


ANDREW   BELL.  1/7 

themselves  as  antagonists  in  the  monitorial  war.  Sermons  were 
preached,  public  meetings  were  held,  pamphlets  were  published  ; 
even  caricatures  of  the  rival  educationists  embellished  the  cur- 
rent literature.  Southey,  Coleridge,  and  the  "Quarterly"  thun- 
dered down  on  Lancaster,  while  Brougham,  Sydney  Smith, 
and  the  "  Edinburgh "  flashed  equal  denunciations  on  the  in- 
novator and  imputed  plagiarist  from  Madras.  In  point  of  fact, 
Lancaster  acknowledged  himself  indebted  for  many  impor- 
tant suggestions  to  Dr.  Bell,  but  at  the  same  time  claimed  the 
monitorial  idea  as  an  independent  invention  of  his  own.  Much 
might  be  said  in  favor  of  the  persevering  young  Quaker  and 
his  improvements  on  Bell's  idea.  The  great  value  of  the  con- 
troversy of  1 805  - 6  to  the  community  was  that  it  brought  the 
question  of  education  to  the  front,  and  gave  it  an  importance 
which  hitherto  it  had  not  attained. 

In  1811  a  society  for  establishing  schools  on  the  Madras  sys- 
tem in  connection  with  the  Established  Church  was  founded, 
and  called  the  National  Society.  This  was  the  beginning  of 
English  National  schools.  From  the  date  of  their  foundation 
until  Dr.  Bell's  death  his  career  is  inseparably  associated  with 
their  progress.  He  devoted  himself  entirely  to  the  work,  labor- 
ing with  unwearied  zeal  to  promote  the  welfare  of  the  society, 
and,  after  prodigious  exertions,  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  his 
system  adopted  not  only  in  the  United  Kingdom,  but  even  in 
America.  He  also  endeavored  to  introduce  it  on  the  Conti- 
nent of  Europe,  and  travelled  much  with  that  view.  But  in 
this  attempt  he  was  not  successful,  as  Pestalozzi  and  Fellenberg 
were  already  in  possession  of  the  field.  In  the  course  of  his 
labors  as  clergyman,  school-manager,  and  inspector,  Dr.  Bell 
by  no  means  trenched  upon  a  narrow  purse.  On  the  contrary, 
he  realized  a  very  handsome  fortune.  The  sum  of  ;£i  20,000, 
whiclr  he  had  made  out  of  the  various  offices  he  had  held,  was 
bequeathed  at  his  death  in  endowments  for  various  schools, 
nearly  one  half  being  given  to  his  own  University  of  St. 
Andrews  towards  the  Madras  College,  of  which  he  was  the 
founder.  He  died  at  Cheltenham  on  the  2/th  of  January,  1832, 
and  was  buried  in  Westminster  Abbey. 


1 78  OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 


JOSEPH    LANCASTER. 

[BORN  1778.    DIED  1838.] 

TN  our  notice  of  the  life  and  educational  labors  of  Dr.  Andrew 
•*-  Bell  we  were  under  the  necessity  of  making  some  allusion 
to  the  young  man  whom  Dr.  Bell's  friends  insisted  upon  de- 
nouncing as  a  plagiarist  and  a  rival.  And  seen  from  the  point 
of  view  taken  by  the  supporters  of  the  Madras  scheme  of  edu- 
cation, there  certainly  seemed  some  ground  for  complaint.  It 
now  becomes  our  duty  to  examine  this  side  of  the  question,  to 
see  what  explanation  could  be  offered  for  the  seeming  rivalry, 
and  whether  Joseph  Lancaster  had  not  sufficient  excuse  for 
considering  himself,  if  not  an  inventor,  at  least  a  great  improver 
upon  a  system  which  offered  so  many  advantages  both  to  master 
and  pupil  in  the  theory  and  practice  of  education.  It  is  cer- 
tainly a  fact  that  whether  his  theories  were  original  or  not, 
Lancaster  devoted  himself  to  the  practical  development  of  the 
views  he  held  quite  as  completely  and  as  enthusiastically  as  his 
more  learned  predecessor.  It  is  also  a  fact  that  Lancaster 
claimed  as  his  own  meritorious  idea,  that  by  his  methods  "  one 
master  could  teach  a  thousand  boys."  If  a  personal  contrast 
were  drawn  between  the  two  men  as  to  character,  manners,  and 
temperament,  it  is  much  to  be  feared  that  Lancaster  would 
suffer.  If  it  be  said  that  Bell  was  prudent,  deliberate,  quiet, 
and  that  Lancaster  was  excitable,  impetuous,  and  improvident, 
the  charge  must  certainly  be  admitted.  One  might  briefly  sum 
up  such  differences  by  saying  that  Bell  was  a  Scotchman, 
Lancaster  was  not.  For  it  may  be  singular,  but  it  is  notorious, 
that  a  man  born  north  of  the  Tweed  appears  to  be  constitu- 
tionally more  prudent,  cautious,  and,  as  a  rule,  successful  in 
worldly  matters  than  one  who  enters  life  on  the  other  side  of 
that  historic  but  shallow  estuary. 


JOSEPH     LANCASTER. 


JOSEPH    LANCASTER,  l8l 

Joseph  Lancaster,  the  founder  of  the  Lancasterian,  or  British 
School,  system  of  education,  was  born  in  Southwark  in  1778. 
He  was  the  son  of  a  pious  soldier,  who  had  fought  under 
the  British  flag  in  America,  and  had  earned  retirement  and  a 
pension.  Early  impressed  by  the  seriousness  of  his  father's 
character,  and  inheriting  a  similarity  of  temperament,  he  very 
soon  showed  an  eager  desire  to  devote  himself  to  the  active 
service  of  God.  This  youthful  enthusiasm  showed  itself  in  an 
attempt,  after  reading  Clarkson's  "  Essay  on  the  Slave  Trade," 
to  go  off  to  Jamaica  and  become  a  Scripture  reader  to  the  poor 
negroes.  He  was  discovered  by  the  captain  of  a  West  Indian 
ship  in  which  he  had  secreted  himself  with  a  Bible  and  "  Pil- 
grim's Progress  "  in  his  pocket,  and  of  course  sent  back  to  his 
parents.  But  this  ignominious  failure  did  not  discourage  him. 
At  sixteen  years  of  age  he  determined  to  begin  life  for  himself 
as  a  school  assistant,  and  after  some  little  experience  in  that 
capacity  his  impulsive  character  urged  him  to  a  still  more 
onerous  and  responsible  task,  —  that  of  teaching  poor  children, 
whose  parents  could  pay  little  or  nothing  for  the  advantages  of 
school,  without  insisting  on  remuneration. 

At  the  time  when  he  formed  this  resolution  there  was  a  class 
of  elementary  schools  in  existence  known  as  the  dame-school. 
This  institution,  better  known,  it  must  be  confessed,  through 
Shenstone's  pathetic  little  poem  of  the  "  Schoolmistress,"  or 
through  Crabbe's  "  Borough,"  than  through  Lancaster's  pam- 
phlet, is  thus  referred  to  in  his  first  published  tract  on  his 
favorite  topic :  "  They  are  frequented  by  boys  and  girls  indis- 
criminately, few  of  them  being  over  seven  years  of  age.  The 
mistress  is  frequently  the  wife  of  some  mechanic,  induced  to 
undertake  the  task  from  a  desire  to  increase  a  scanty  income 
or  to  add  to  her  domestic  comforts."  We  confess  that  we  do 
not  see  any  great  crime  in  motives  thus  candidly  set  forth.  It 
is  certain  that  persons  can  be  found  whose  motives  are  neither 
better  nor  worse,  but  whose  methods  of  supporting  those  mo- 
tives are  by  no  means  so  innocent  or  useful. 

But  to  proceed :  "  The  subjects  of  tuition  are  reading  and 
needlework;  the  number  of  children  is  very  fluctuating,  and 


1 82  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

seldom  exceeds  thirty.  The  pay  is  very  uncertain.  Disorder 
and  noise  seem  more  the  characteristics  of  these  schools  than 
improvement  of  any  kind.  Many  poor  children  go  at  once 
from  these  schools  to  work,  and  have  no  other  opportunities  of 
instruction." 

With  a  firm  conviction  of  the  uselessness,  or  worse  than 
uselessness,  of  a  system  of  education  like  this,  and  an  enthusi- 
astic desire  to  be  eminently  useful  in  promoting  a  better  state 
of  things,  Lancaster,  in  1798,  opened  a  school  in  his  father's 
house,  —  a  modest  building  nearly  opposite  the  present  Train- 
ing College  in  the  Borough  Road.  Here  he  undertook  to 
teach  what  he  considered  the  essentials  of  knowledge  —  read- 
ing, writing,  arithmetic,  and  the  Holy  Scriptures  —  for  four- 
pence  a  week.  At  the  same  time  he  placed  over  his  door  the 
following  singular  notice :  "  All  that  will  may  send  their  chil- 
dren and  have  them  educated  freely;  and  those  who  do  not 
wish  to  have  education  for  nothing  may  pay  for  it  if  they 
please." 

The  author  of  this  very  unusual  announcement  was  then 
just  twenty  years  of  age,  and  possessed  of  no  other  knowledge 
either  of  methods  or  subjects  than  was  to  be  found  in  the 
schools  of  which,  he  complained  so  bitterly.  Of  second-grade 
schools  he  had  no  better  an  opinion  than  of  the  dame-schools. 
"  The  masters  of  these  schools,"  he  writes  in  the  pamphlet  just 
referred  to,  "  are  generally  the  refuse  of  superior  schools,  and 
too  often  of  society  at  large.  The  pay  and  number  of  schol- 
ars are  alike  low  and  fluctuating.  Of  course  there  is  little 
encouragement  for  steady  men,  either  to  engage  or  continue 
in  this  line ;  it  being  impossible  to  keep  school,  defray  its  ex- 
penses, and  do  the  children  regular  justice  without  a  regular 
income.  Eventually  many  schools,  respectable  in  better  times, 
are  abandoned  to  men  of  any  character,  who  use  as  much 
chicane  to  fill  their  pockets  as  the  most  despicable  pettifogger. 
Writing-books  are  scribbled  through,  whole  pages  filled  with 
scrawls,  to  hasten  the  demand  for  new  books.  These  schools 
are  chiefly  attended  by  the  children  of  artificers,  whose  pay 
fluctuates  with  their  employ,  and  is  sometimes  withheld  by  bad 


JOSEPH    LANCASTER.  183 

principals.  Debts  are  often  contracted  that  do  not  exceed  a 
few  shillings ;  then  the  parents  remove  their  children  from 
school  and  never  pay  it,  the  smallness  of  the  sum  proving  an 
effectual  bar  to  its  recovery,  the  trouble  and  loss  of  time  being 
worse  than  the  loss  of  money  in  the  first  instance." 

Lancaster's  first  school  did  not  show  any  peculiar  signs  of 
success  or  prosperity.  Even  though  swelled  by  a  considerable 
proportion  of  gratuitous  pupils,  the  summer  school-list  was  only 
about  one  hundred  and  twenty.  In  winter  the  attendance 
scarcely  reached  one  half  this  number.  At  one  time,  during  a 
period  of  scarcity,  many  of  the  children  had  dinner  as  well  as 
education  gratis,  —  the  cost  being  defrayed  by  certain  generous 
friends  of  the  promoter  of  the  scheme. 

It  was  while  practising,  or,  rather,  vainly  attempting  to  prac- 
tise, the  plan  which  he  had  thus  devised,  and  which  he  had 
adopted  much  too  hastily  and  prematurely,  that  he  "  stumbled," 
to  use  his  own  term,  on  a  plan  similar  to  that  of  Dr.  Bell,  before 
reading  the  Madras  Report.  This  was  denied  by  the  sup- 
porters of  the  National  system ;  but  although  Lancaster  was 
induced  to  admit  that  after  reading  the  Report  he  had  adopted 
some  of  its  ideas  to  improve  his  own  scheme,  he  still  persisted 
in  the  statement  that  the  monitorial  idea  was  one  hit  upon  by 
himself  independently,  and  was  therefore  equally  original  with 
that  of  his  predecessor, 

The  effect  of  the  new  method  was  almost  startling  in  its  suc- 
cess. In  1801  he  had  to  remove  to  more  extensive  premises, 
provided  for  him  through  the  valuable  influence  and  help  of 
Lord  Somerville  and  the  Duke  of  Bedford.  This  establishment 
was  the  forerunner  of  the  present  Training  College  and  schools 
which  many  years  afterwards  were  erected  on  the  same  spot. 
A  more  enthusiastic  teacher  than  Lancaster  never  lived.  Far 
from  rushing  off  to  his  home  or  other  occupations  as  soon  as 
school  hours  came  to  a  close,  he  would  join  the  children's  play 
in  the  intervals  of  work,  and  invite  companies  of  them  to  tea. 
His  very  holidays  were  spent  in  their  society,  —  in  country 
strolls  and  outdoor  recreations.  Self-sacrifice  was  really  a 
pleasure  to  him,  for  it  was  the  indulgence  of  his  earnest  desire 


184  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

to  be  useful  to  his  charge.  Unfortunately  for  him,  he  became 
famous.  Visitors  of  the  highest  rank,  crowded  to  witness  the 
extraordinary  spectacle  in  which  one  schoolmaster  was  teach- 
ing a  thousand  scholars.  "  Foreign  princes,  ambassadors, 
peers,  commoners,  ladies  of  distinction,  bishops,  and  arch- 
bishops," says  Mr.  Dunn,  the  able  and  energetic  secretary  of 
the  British  and  Foreign  School  Society,  "  turned  their  steps  to 
the  Borough  Road,  and  there  beheld  a  scene  they  were  not 
likely  to  forget.  The  whole  tone  of  the  place  was  joyous, 
duties  were  agreeably  varied  from  hour  to  hour,  and  though 
the  noise  often  bewildered  a  visitor,  it  was  at  least  the  noise 
of  animated  work,  and  was  succeeded  in  an  instant,  at  the 
word  of  command,  by  perfect  stillness." 

That  Lancaster  did  not  solve  the  vexed  and  difficult  problem 
of  school  discipline  —  notwithstanding  the  above  glowing 
description  —  is  evident  from  the  strange  and  absurd  devices 
for  punishment  enumerated  in  his  own  list.  One  of  the  favor- 
ite methods  at  first  adopted  was  that  of  the  "  log,"  —  a  mode 
of  torture  which  reminds  one  of  the  ingenuity  of  Oriental 
magistrates  rather  than  the  humane  suggestion  of  a  man  who 
above  all  things  wished  to  avoid  actual  flogging  because  of  its 
cruelty  and  degradation.  Of  course  the  absence  of  "  corporal 
punishment,"  with  such  contrivances  as  the  "  log "  and  the 
"  shackle,"  was  merely  nominal.  To  avoid  a  chastisement 
which  applied  a  smart  pain  to  the  shoulders,  or,  however  ap- 
plied, was  not  actually  injurious  to  health  or  limb,  and  to 
replace  it  by  another  which  gave  pain  without  physical  smart 
and  added  moral  .humiliation,  had  at  first  sight  a  specious 
appearance,  not  only  of  novelty,  but  of  a  revolution  in  school 
management.  But  experience  proved  otherwise  ;  and  Lancaster 
himself  had  to  abandon  many  of  the  puerile  devices  which 
had  apparently  promised  to  solve  the  great  and  growing  diffi- 
culty of  discipline. 

Four  years  after  the  opening  of  the  second  school  in  the 
Borough  Road,  Lancaster  was  summoned  to  an  audience  with 
the  King;  and  it  was  on  this  occasion  that  the  kind-hearted 
monarch  gave  utterance  to  a  saying  almost  as  historic  as  that 


JOSEPH    LANCASTER.  185 

of  Henry  IV.  of  France.  "  I  would,"  said  the  enthusiastic 
Frenchman,  "  that  every  peasant  in  my  dominions  may  have  a 
fowl  in  his  pot."  "  It  is  my  wish,"  said  George  III.,  "  that 
every  poor  child  in  my  dominions  should  be  taught  to  read 
the  Bible." 

A  new  era  in  the  history  of  the  Lancasterian  movement 
began  from  this  interview.  The  King  headed  the  subscription 
list,  and  money  poured  into  the  school  exchequer.  Lancaster 
was  at  this  moment  a  complete  success.  But  at  the  very  junc- 
ture which  might  have  proved  the  making  not  only  of  the 
system  but  of  the  man,  he  lost  his  head.  He  began  a  series 
of  progresses  to  various  towns,  delivering  lectures  which  he 
illustrated  by  the  aid  of  monitors  who  accompanied  him.  The 
enthusiasm  which  animated  his  explanations  spread  to  his  va- 
ried audiences,  and  he  had  the  satisfaction  of  asserting  that 
in  one  year  a  new  school  on  his  system  had  been  opened  in 
every  week.  In  this  way,  and  by  reckless  expenditure  on 
school  treats  and  a  visionary  attempt  to  adapt  the  system  to 
agricultural  processes,  the  funds,  once  apparently  inexhaust- 
ible, and  in  reality  exceedingly  ample,  were  reduced  until  the 
imprudent  speculator  found  himself  not  merely  impoverished, 
but  in  debt.  In  this  state  of  things  a  committee  was  formed, 
who,  seeing  what  might  be  made  of  the  system  with  judicious 
management,  paid  Lancaster's  debts,  and  rehabilitated  the  un- 
dertaking under  the  name  of  the  Royal  Lancasterian  Institu- 
tion. This  took  place  in  1808.  Six  years  later,  the  name  was 
changed  to  that  of  the  British  and  Foreign  School  Society,  in 
which  it  still  continues.  In  all  these  changes  Lancaster  might 
still  have  been  happy  and  successful.  But  he  could  not  control 
financial  matters.  Allowed  an  ample  salary,  and  burdened 
only  with  the  condition  of  keeping  a  strict  account  of  his  pecu- 
niary transactions  with  regard  to  the  institution,  he  yet  could 
not  mould  himself  to  the  safer  and  more  prudent  line  of  con- 
duct. The  result  was  that  finally  he  quarrelled  with  the  com- 
mittee, threw  up  his  place,  opened  a  private  school  at  Tooting, 
and,  after  a  repetition  of  pecuniary  troubles,  in  1818  emigrated 
to  America.  For  twenty  years  he  labored  on  the  familiar 


186  OUR  GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 

lines,  with  frequent  reverses,  but  with  many  opportunities  of 
success,  until  at  length  an  accident  in  the  streets  of  New  York 
put  a  sudden  end  to  his  troubled  and  fluctuating  career. 

In  looking  back  upon  the  labors  of  this  devoted  and  enthu- 
siastic schoolmaster,  we  can  afford  to  forget  all  his  faults  in 
the  presence  of  the  truly  great  work  which  he  founded  and 
carried  on  to  such  unquestionable  success.  The  one  point  on 
which  he  insisted,  of  making  the  teaching  of  the  Bible  a  part 
of  his  curriculum,  was  in  his  own  day,  as  it  has  been  since, 
seized  upon  as  a  party  and  sectarian  question.  It  was  that  on 
which  controversy,  hinged,  and  about  which  the  storm  arose 
which  was  referred  to  in  our  sketch  of  Dr.  Bell.  The  recent 
decision  of  the  Birmingham  School  Board,  after  so  much  bitter 
disputation,  favors  the  opinion  that,  on  the  whole,  Lancaster's 
view  was  correct.  And  it  is  the  opinion  of  one  of  the  most 
experienced  of  school  inspectors,  that,  above  all  things,  Lancas- 
ter's greatest  praise  was  his  vindication  of  a  Christian  yet 
unsectarian  system  of  education. 


ELIHU    BURRITT. 

[BORN  1810.     DIED  1879.] 

TT  is  one  of  the  prominent  traits  of  nature's  nobility  to  dis- 
•*•  dain  higher  titles  than  those  which  fortune  brings.  The 
innate  ambition  of  these  "  sons  of  the  soil "  does  not  appear 
in  a  name,  in  being  or  becoming  great,  but  in  improving  their 
own  race  and  time,  and  leaving  the  world  better  than  they  find 
it.  A  true  sagacity  characterizes  them,  and  they  are  acutely 
alive  to  the  imperfections  of  both.  So  with  heroic  courage 
they  leap  into  the  breach,  and  become  the  means  of  a  reforma- 
tion which  marks  their  memory  beyond  the  power  of  ages  to 
efface.  When  Marshman,  the  master  of  languages,  translator 
of  the  Bible,  and  founder  of  the  Indian  colleges,  as  he  sat  at 


ELIHU    BURRITT. 


ELIHU    BURRITT.  189 

table  and  overheard  one  distinguished  guest  inquire  of  another 
whether  he  (Marshman)  had  not  been  a  shoemaker,  he  vigor- 
ously replied,  "  No,  only  a  cobbler." 

Justice  can  assert  her  rights  even  among  the  humblest,  and 
these  are  happily  hereditary;  for  when  Elihu  Burritt,  the  sub- 
ject of  these  lines,  was  first  brought  into  notoriety,  he  at  once 
replied :  "  I  had,  until  the  unfortunate  denouement  which  I 
have  mentioned,  pursued  the  even  tenor  of  my  own  way,  un- 
noticed even  among  my  brethren  and  my  kindred.  None  of 
them  even  thought  I  had  any  particular  genius,  as  it  is  called. 
I  never  thought  so  myself."  He  realized  that  "  a  prophet  is 
not  without  honor,  save  in  his  own  country  and  in  his  own 
house,"  yet  he  persevered,  insensible  of  the  public  gaze  which 
was  already  fastened  on  him,  and  unaware  what  a  crown  his 
genius  was  then  weaving.  His  life  was  a  vivid  example  of 
what  hard  work  and  untiring  application  can  accomplish.  The 
true  nobility  of  man  and  dignity  of  labor  were  his  by  inher- 
itance. He  knew  that 

"  Perseverance  keeps  honor  bright," 

and  so  worked  and  labored  until  the  end  came,  when  he 
passed  to  a  far  higher  ministry  than  earth  had  to  offer. 

Elihu  Burritt  was  born  at  New  Britain,  in  the  State  of  Con- 
necticut, December  8,  1810.  His  father  was  a  shoemaker  and 
farmer,  —  a  hard-working  man,  who  united  with  his  homely 
calling  a  degree  of  philanthropy  almost  unknown,  and  whose 
only  legacy  was  his  patient,  noble  example.  This  Elihu  in- 
herited and  zealously  cultivated.  In  his  youth  the  means  of 
education  were  few;  and  the  only  opportunity  he  had  of  becom- 
ing acquainted  with  books  was  through  a  loving  mother,  who 
subscribed  to  the  village  library,  which  was  only  open  once 
during  eight  weeks.  However,  his  genius  first  raised  him  to 
the  dignity  of  a  blacksmith,  in  which  capacity  during  twenty 
years  he  found  leisure  for  storing  his  mind  with  knowledge,  so 
that  at  the  age  of  twenty-seven  he  could  read  about  fifty  lan- 
guages. Suddenly  he  found  himself  famous.  Night  after 
night  he  sat  down,  with  aching  limbs  and  his  hands  blistered 


19°  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

and  painful,  to  master  some  profound  question,  the  fruits  of 
which  he  would  sow  broadcast  for  the  good  of  the  class  and 
community  to  which  he  felt  it  an  honor  to  belong.  This  was 
all  his  ambition, — to  be  useful  to  others  in  his  generation  and 
as  long  after  as  Providence  might  think  fit.  What  a  lesson  for 
our  sons  of  toil,  the  whole  world  over !  What  an  amount  of 
brain  energy  and  valuable  tirrie  is  thrown  away  in  useless  con- 
tests or  drowned  in  the  drink  pot !  And  the  saddest  thought 
is  that  neither  the  time  nor  the  energy  can  be  recovered,  —  an 
effect  \vhich  must  recoil  on  future  generations. 

Elihu  Burritt  was  essentially  a  working  man  from  the  first  to 
the  end  of  his  days.  The  improvement  of  his  people  and 
country  was  his  sole  purpose.  He  never  saw  his  own  great- 
ness. This  he  desired  for  others ;  and  when  he  stepped  from 
his  smithy  floor  it  was  direct  to  the  platform  to  proclaim  the 
first  and  golden  principles  of  "  peace  on  earth  and  good-will 
to  men,"  and  from  these  he  was  led  into  the  essential  side 
streams  of  temperance,  abolition  of  slavery,  ocean  postage, 
development  of  industries,  etc.,  which  he  ably  advocated  in  a 
weekly  periodical  specially  commenced  for  the  purpose. 

The  first  fruits  of  his  advocacy  of  peace  principles  were 
shown  in  1846,  when  he  became  the  bearer  of  the  news  of  an 
amicable  settlement  of  the  difference  between  England  and 
America  respecting  the  Oregon  territory,  and  his  feelings  were 
uttered  in  the  most  poetic  and  sublime  language.  But  his 
work  was  far  from  being  done.  In  the  dark  hour  of  Ireland's 
real  need  in  1847  he  paid  a  visit  to  that  country;  and  in  re- 
sponse to  his  appeal  the  hearts  of  millions,  black  and  white, 
were  stirred  in  America,  and  at  length  ships  of  war  were  laden, 
not  with  shot  and  shell,  but  with  peaceful  ammunition,  in  the 
shape  of  barrels  of  pork  and  flour  for  the  starving  masses. 

He  lived  to  see  further  fruits  of  his  thought  and  labors. 
Richard  Cobden  in  1849  was  induced  to  bring  before  the 
House  of  Commons  a  motion  which,  although  lost,  raised  the 
testimony  of  more  than  seventy  members  in  favor  of  interna- 
tional arbitration;  and  in  1871  Henry  Richard,  M. P.,  followed 
with  a  similar  motion,  which  has  been  acceded  to,  not  only  in 


13 


THE    REV.    F.    D.    MAURICE, 


THE    REV.   F.   D.   MAURICE.  193 

England,  but  in  several  other  countries,  the  settlement  of  the 
Alabama  claims  being  proof  that  those  questions  can  be  accom- 
plished without  the  intervention  of  sword  and  rifle.  Such  events 
cannot  do  less  than  mark  the  periods  as  memorable;  and  for 
the  individuals  who  occupied  the  stage  of  action,  who  thought 
brilliantly  and  worked  heroically,  there  exist  no  brighter 
laurels  than  those  which  deck  the  brow  of  the  New  England 
blacksmith.  Busy  with  his  voice  and  pen,  although  he  was 
pursuing  the  avocation  of  a  farmer,  in  the  work  of  the  good 
of  the  universal  brotherhood  of  man,  he  still  labored  faithfully, 
and  at  last  peacefully  closed  his  career  of  eminent  usefulness 
on  the  7th  of  March,  1879,  in  his  sixty-ninth  year. 

Of  his  writings  it  may  be  said  that  they  are  unsurpassed  for 
earnestness,  eloquence,  feeling,  elegance,  and  power  of  descrip- 
tion. They  comprise  many  volumes,  the  principal  of  which 
are  "  Sparks  from  the  Anvil,"  "  A  Voice  from  the  Forge," 
"  Peace  Papers  for  the  People,"  "  Walks  in  the  Black  Country," 
and  the  "  Mission  of  the  Great  Sufferings,"  besides  smaller 
works  intended  for  the  young. 

We  cannot  conclude  this  brief  and  imperfect  sketch  of  the 
career  of  this  eminently  good  man  without  referring  to  the 
part  he  took  in  reducing  the  rate  of  ocean  postage.  To  him 
we  are  mainly  indebted  for  the  privileges  we  now  possess ;  and 
this,  among  the  many  noble  deeds  in  which  he  has  at  least 
taken  part,  if  not  actually  accomplished,  will  cause  his  memory 
to  be  revered  and  blessed  by  generations  yet  unborn. 


THE    REV.    F.    D.    MAURICE. 

[BORN  1805.     DIED  1860.] 

THE   literary  world  has  been  looking  forward  to  the  time 
when  Major  Maurice's  military  duties  should  permit  him  to 
complete  the  memoir  of  his  eminent  father.     As,  however,  that 
memoir  has  so  recently  appeared,  it  may  be  permissible  to  give 


194  OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

a  brief  account  of  the  origin,  institution,  and  progress  of  that 
benefaction  to  the  London  artisan,  the  Working  Men's  Col- 
lege, with  which  the  Rev.  Mr.  Maurice's  name  is  indissolubly 
connected,  and  of  which  he  was  for  many  years  the  revered 
principal. 

The  Rev.  Frederick  Denison  Maurice,  late  chaplain  of  Lin- 
coln's Inn,  Professor  of  King's  and  Queen's  Colleges,  London, 
was  born  in  1805.  At  an  early  age  he  entered  Trinity  College, 
Cambridge,  about  the  same  time  as  John  Sterling,  1823.  The 
friends  afterwards  migrated  to  Trinity  Hall,  and  Mr.  Maurice 
ultimately  took  his  degree  at  Oxford.  He  was  the  author  of 
numerous  religious  and  philosophical  works ;  but  an  examina- 
tion of  the  purport  and  power  of  these  must  be  left  to  one 
thoroughly  acquainted  with  this  eminent  divine  and  public 
benefactor's  theological  and  philosophical  views. 

To  form  a  true  estimate  of  the  value  of  the  Working  Men's 
College  as  a  benefaction  to  the  working  men  of  London,  we 
must  recollect  that  the  educational  views  which  led  to  the 
establishment  of  school  boards  and  of  school-board  schools 
were  in  the  earlier  days  of  the  college  as  yet  undeveloped. 
The  institution  of  the  college  itself  may  indeed  have  been  a 
by  no  means  unimportant  factor  in  bringing  about  that  educa- 
tional reform ;  for  it  was  designed  to  palliate  a  national  over- 
sight, and  to  offer  to  the  irregularly  educated  working  man 
opportunities  for  mental  and  physical  improvement  at  a  merely 
nominal  cost,  and  not  only  this,  but  to  the  talented  and  aspiring 
the  means  of  rising  to  intellectual  eminence.  Such  intentions 
could  only  be  efficiently  carried  out  by  educated  and  earnest 
men  bending  their  energies  willingly  and  gratuitously  to  the 
noble  work  of  teaching. 

The  notion  which  took  such  a  strong  hold  on  the  minds  of 
Mr.  Maurice  and  his  coadjutors,  and  which  led  to  the  institu- 
tion of  the  college,  appears  to  have  originated  in  some  self- 
questioning  of  Mr.  Ludlow,  of  Lincoln's  Inn,  who,  moved  by 
the  events  of  the  revolution  of  1848,  asked,  not  only  himself, 
but  others,  whether  he  and  they  were  doing  as  much  as  they 
might  and  ought  for  that  large  public  of  less  means  by  which 


THE   REV.   F.  D.   MAURICE.  195 

they  were  surrounded,  —  the  poor  and  the  artisan.  The  answer 
was  a  proposal  to  the  then  newly  appointed  chaplain  of  Lin- 
coln's Inn,  Mr.  Maurice,  that  some  near  district  should  be  taken 
in  hand  by  the  lawyers  whom  Mr.  Ludlow  could  get  together. 
Little  Ormond  Yard  was  at  last  handed  over  to  this  little  band 
of  zealous  workers,  who,  under  the  name  of  Christian  Socialists, 
sought  in  various  ways  to  ameliorate  the  condition  of  those 
who  were  writhing  under  difficulties  around  and  below  them. 
These  benefactors  used  to  meet  at  Mr.  Maurice's  one  evening 
in  the  week,  when  Mayhew's  letters  on  "  Labor  and  the  Poor," 
which  appeared  in  the  "  Morning  Chronicle,"  were  frequently 
the  subject  of  conversation.  "  Few  of  us,"  says  Mr.  Furnivall, 
from  whose  "  History  of  the  College "  our  information  is  in 
the  main  derived,  "  had  any  idea  of  the  widespread  misery  in 
the  workmen's  homes  around  us,  and  fewer  still  knew  how  the 
'  slop '  system  had  been  at  work  lowering  wages,  destroying 
the  honorable  trade,  and  forcing  women  and  children  into  work." 
Then  a  working-men's  association  was  projected,  ^300  was  got 
together,  and  a  manager  was  found.  The  Rev.  Charles  Kings- 
ley  wrote  a  pamphlet,  and  the  association  opened  at  Castle 
Street  East,  Oxford  Street  Then  came  the  tracts  on  Christian 
Socialism  by  Mr.  Maurice,  to  explain  why  such  associations 
were  needed.  The  "  Christian  Socialist,"  a  penny  weekly  pa- 
per, was  started.  Mr.  Vansittart  Neale  came  forward  to  help 
this  band  of  workers,  which  now  became  the  propaganda,  advo- 
cating the  establishment  of  similar  institutions  in  different  parts 
of  the  country.  They  built  a  hall ;  and  here  were  begun,  at  Mr. 
Ludlow's  suggestion,  classes  and  lectures,  to  both  of  which 
women  were  admitted. 

"  A  great  want,"  says  Mr.  Furnivall,  "  had  all  along  been  felt 
for  better  education  among  the  co-operators,  and  at  our  meet- 
ing on  January  11,  1854,  the  minute-book  records:  '  A  conver- 
sation took  place  concerning  the  establishment  of  a  people's 
college  in  London,  in  connection  with  the  association.' "  And 
further  on,  "The  following  resolution,  proposed  by  Mr.  Hughes, 
seconded  by  Mr.  Lloyd  Jones,  was  carried:  'That  it  be  referred 
to  the  Committee  of  Teaching  and  Publication  to  frame,  and,  so 


196  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

far  as  they  think  fit,  to  carry  out,  a  plan  for  the  establishment 
of  a  people's  college  in  connection  with  the  metropolitan 
associations.' "  The  Committee  of  Teaching  and  Publication 
consisted  of  the  Rev.  F.  D.  Maurice  (President),  Viscount 
Goderich,  the  Rev.  H.  J.  Hose,  William  Johnson,  Esq.,  the  Rev. 
C.  Kingsley,  A.  H.  Louis,  Esq.,  J.  M.  Ludlow,  Esq.,  E.  Lumley, 
Esq.,  C.  B.  Mansfield,  Esq.,  E.  Vansittart  Neale,  Esq.,  the  Rev. 
C.  K.  Paul,  C;  R.  Walsh,  Esq.,  John  Westlake,  Esq.,  Thomas 
Shorter,  Esq.  (Secretary). 

Mr.  Maurice  outlined  a  plan,  and  put  into  their  hands  a 
printed  statement  of  some  dozen  pages,  on  February  7,  1854. 
In  this  paper  Mr.  Maurice,  among  other  important  matters, 
gives  a  reason  for  adopting  a  somewhat  ambitious  curriculum: 
"  My  reason  for  starting  with  such  difficult  subjects  as  politics 
and  ethics  is  because  all  our  pupils  are  politicians  and  ethical 
theorists  before  they  come  to  us.  What  we  want  is  to  put 
order  into  their  crude  thoughts,  or  rather  to  lead  them  grad- 
ually to  perceive  (we  ourselves  learning  as  we  teach)  the  order 
which  is  at  the  bottom  of  their  thoughts."  Mr.  Maurice's  draft 
concludes  with  some  consideration  of  the  question  how  far  the 
education  of  the  workwoman  may  be  joined  with  that  of  the 
workman,  and  where  they  should  diverge.  But  the  need  of  such 
an  institution  as  the  Working  Men's  College  was  well  summa- 
rized in  a  circular  which  was  afterwards  issued :  — 

"  The  working  men  of  England  are  trying  from  various  motives  and  in 
various  ways  to  educate  themselves ;  some  of  them  hope  that  their  class 
may  obtain  greater  influence  in  the  legislature.  They  desire  that  it 
should  qualify  itself  for  that  position  by  the  study  of  laws  and  of  history. 
Some  of  them  think  that  there  are  many  maxims  of  morality  current 
among  us  which  tend  to  divide  and  to  degrade  them. ,  They  wish  to 
find  out  the  true  principle  which  binds  them  together  and  shows  them 
what  objects  they  are  to  live  for.  Some  are  impressed  strongly  with  the 
mischief  that  comes  to  them  from  their  ignorance  of  the  causes  which 
produce  disease  and  of  the  best  means  of  securing  health.  Some  wish 
to  understand  better  the  machinery  with  which  they  are  working.  Some 
feel  what  a  blessing  it  would  be  to  them  if  they  could  use  their  voices  in 
singing  and  their  hands  in  drawing.  Some  are  puzzled  with  a  number 


THE    REV.   F.   D.   MAURICE.  IQ/ 

of  doubts  about  the  world  within  and  without  them,  which  they  dare  not 
stifle,  and  through  which  they  long  to  see  their  way. 

"Working  men  have,  therefore,  established  debating  societies  and 
societies  for  mutual  instruction  among  themselves,  or  they  have  profited 
by  the  mechanics'  institutes  and  evening  classes  which  others  have  es- 
tablished for  them.  Of  late  in  Sheffield  (and  we  believe  also  in  Not- 
tingham) some  of  them  have  set  up  a  people's  college,  where  they  hope 
for  more  thorough  instruction  than  they  can  get  by  either  merely  talking 
together  or  by  merely  attending  lectures  on  miscellaneous  subjects. 

"  This  thought,  it  seems  to  us,  is  very  valuable.  The  name  college  is 
an  old  and  venerable  one.  It  implies  a  society  for  fellow-work,  a  society 
of  which  teachers  and  learners  are  equally  members,  a  society  in  which 
men  are  not  held  together  by  the  bond  of  buying  and  selling,  a  society 
in  which  they  meet  not  as  belonging  to  a  class  or  a  caste,  but  as  having 
a  common  life  which  God  has  given  them,  and  which  He  will  cultivate 
in  them." 

Such,  then,  were  some  of  the  preliminaries  to  the  establish- 
ment of  the  London  Working  Men's  College,  first  opened  at  31 
Red  Lion  Square,  October  31,  1854,  and  subsequently,  in  1857, 
at  45  Great  Ormond  Street,  and  which  has  now  become  so 
famous  and  widely  known. 

One  of  the  professed  objects  of  the  college  was  to  mitigate 
class  prejudices  by  the  intercommunion  of  teacher  and  student. 
This  has  led  to  what  is  called  the  social  life  of  the  college,  in 
which  both  meet  to  discuss  questions  of  importance,  or  at  con- 
versations, or  in  some  interesting  excursion.  Good  fellowship 
was  further  promoted  by  the  formation  of  a  choir,  a  cricket 
club,  a  rifle  corps,  etc.  Of  this  social  life  Mr.  W.  B.  Litchfield, 
an  old  friend  of  the  college,  has  been  the  presiding  spirit. 

The  college  could  only  have  been  carried  on  by  gratuitous 
teaching.  The  number  of  eminent  men  who  have  devoted 
themselves  to  this  work  is  too  numerous  for  us  to  record.  This 
very  fact  is  in  itself  an  earnest  to  the  working  man  that  other 
classes  take  a  deep  interest  in  his  desire  for  improvement,  in  his 
aspirations,.  Many  teachers  have  rendered  gratuitous  service 
through  many  years.  This  voluntary  service  has  no  doubt  had 
its  effect  in  producing  that  cordial  unanimity  of  feeling  which 


19$  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

obtains  among  all  connected  with  the  institution.  And  the 
teachers  who  have  retired  from  active  work  and  transferred 
their  torch  to  other  hands  will  all  bear  testimony  to  the  persis- 
tency of  the  grateful  remembrance  of  services  rendered.  Mr. 
Maurice  was  in  the  widest  sense  of  the  word  a  "  humane  "  man, 
and  his  humanity  initiated  that  admirable  tone  which  has  ever 
since  been  maintained  in  the  college.  He  had  a  breadth  of 
sympathy  and  a  hopefulness  of  outlook  which  endeared  him  to 
all.  For  the  earnest  and  striving  he  always  had  encouraging 
words.  There  is  the  future  before  you,  he  seemed  to  say; 
make  the  best  of  that.  Nothing  is  denied  to  well-directed 
industry. 

The  executive  heads  of  the  college  have  always  endeavored  to 
secure  its  independence,  and  this  object  has  to  a  considerable 
extent  been  attained.  They  have  always  been  reluctant  to  make 
public  appeals  for  assistance.  Still  we  know  that  the  usefulness 
of  the  college  might  be  increased  if  it  only  had  an  ampler  ex- 
chequer. Noisy  agitation  frequently  fills  the  coffers  of  insti- 
tutions of  far  less  utility.  Nevertheless  it  has  found  some 
generous  donors.  The  Prince  of  Wales  contributed  to  the 
Building  Fund. 

The  lamented  death  of  Mr.  Maurice,  the  first  president  of  the 
college,  occurred  April  5,  1860.  His  remains  were  interred  in 
Highgate  Cemetery,  with  every  demonstration  of  affection  and 
respect,  on  the  loth:  a  large  concourse  of  friends,  teachers,  and 
students  followed  in  procession  and  gathered  round  his  grave. 

The  college  is  now  flourishing  under  the  presidency  of  Mr. 
Thomas  Hughes,  Q.C.,  who  gratefully  acknowledges,  as  do 
very  many  eminent  men,  that  he  is  indebted  to  the  example 
and  to  the  teaching  of  Frederick  Denison  Maurice. 


GEORGE    AUGUSTUS    SELWYN. 


GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SELWYN.  2OI 


GEORGE   AUGUSTUS    SELWYN. 

[BoRN  1809.     DIED  APRIL  n,  1878.] 

"A  CHRISTIAN  athlete,  with  eyes  strong  of  ken, 

Muscles  of  steel,  a  foot  swift  as  the  wind, 
Lungs  free  of  play  in  the  broad-chested  frame, 

Firm  hand  on  rudder,  lusty  arm  on  oar, 
A  voice  that  keen  and  clear  as  clarion  came, 
Courage  that  risks  of  land  and  sea  o'erbore'. 

"  And  with  that  strength  of  frame  like  strength  of  will ; 

A  purpose  clear  as  was  his  steel-gray  eye ; 
Courage  his  end  to  see  distinctly  still, 
And  pluck  to  do  whate'er  he  set  to  try. 

"So  he  sailed  forth  across  Australian  seas, 

To  where  the  savage  Maori  held  his  own, 
Bark-robed,  tattooed,  close  watching,  ill  at  ease, 

The  white  man's  strength,  still  growing,  not  yet  grown. 

"  And  there  the  Bishop  stood,  between  the  war 

Of  clans  and  chiefs  and  settlers  all  alone, 
Holding  the  Christian  banner  high  and  far 

'Bove  smoke  of  strife,  and  noise  of  war-conch  blown  ! 

"  Till  settler,  savage,  in  all  else  apart, 

Both  owned  the  Christian  courage,  Christian  zeal, 
And  Christian  singleness  of  eye  and  heart, 

Wherewith  the  Bishop  strove  for  cither's  weal." 

So  "  Punch  "  wrote,  and  well,  of  the  subject  of  this  brief  sketch. 
As  a  lad,  George  Selwyn  was  an  acknowledged  leader  in  all  that 
was  brave  and  pure  and  good.  After  passing- a  brilliant  career  at 
Eton,  alike  in  physical  as  in  intellectual  pursuits,  we  find  him, 
in  the  midst  of  self-denying  labor  as  curate  of  Windsor,  fur- 
thering the  work  of  the  Church  in  that  town  by  returning  the 


202  OUR  GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 

hardly  earned  stipend  of  two  years'  labor  towards  the  removal 
of  a  debt  connected  with  the  same.  While  here,  Albert  "  the 
Good  "  evinced  marked  regard  for  him  ;  and  from  that  time  Her 
Majesty  took  more  than  an  ordinary  interest  in  the  young 
priest's  welfare.  In  the  year  1841,  with  his  university  honors 
fresh  before  the  public,  he  was  called  to  go  out  as  the  first 
Bishop  of  New  Zealand,  a  colony  yet  red  with  the  blood 
spilled  by  cannibals.  Many  of  his  friends,  among  whom  was 
Sydney  Smith,  prophesied  anything  but  a  favorable  ending  to 
the  enterprise.  The  trenchant  words  of  Sir  Robert  Peel,  who 
was  then  Prime  Minister,  were,  however,  a  kindly  tribute  to 
the  godly  zeal  of  the  young  missionary,  and  fitly  described  the 
power  that  drew  him  from  home  and  certain  preferment  to  the 
care  of  a  wild  and  uncivilized  colony.  Upon  being  questioned 
as  to  the  motive  for  young  Selwyn's  action,  and  hearing  ex- 
pressions of  wonderment  and  concern  at  the  same,  he  turned 
to  his  interrogator  and  quoted  the  well-known  lines,  — 

"  He  sees  a  hand  we  cannot  see 
Which  beckons  him  away." 

During  the  voyage  out  the  tutor  became  the  scholar,  and 
acquired  such  a  knowledge  of  the  Maori  language  that  he  was 
enabled  to  preach  his  first  sermon  to  the  natives  in  their  own 
tongue.  This,  together  with  the  art  of  navigation,  which  he 
also  learned  during  the  journey,  secured  for  him  the  immedi- 
ate esteem  of  this  uncouth  people.  His  great  aim  was  to  found 
a  branch  of  the  English  Church  in  that  far-off  land,  and  to 
that  end  he  devoted  himself  with  true  apostolic  fervor. 

The  account  of  his  subsequent  life  reads  like  the  romantic 
pages  of  a  well-written  novel.  He  and  the  Maoris  became 
strongly  attached  to  each  other ;  and  his  zeal  for  their  social 
and  political  as  well  as  their  religious  interests  was  gratefully 
recognized  by,  and  gave  him  no  small  influence  over  them. 
To  them  he  was  an  exemplar  of  muscular  Christianity,  and  so 
gained  universal  admiration.  No  life  could  be  more  full  of 
marvellous  incident,  and  show  more  indefatigable  labor  for 
mankind,  than  his:  to-day  the  broad-shouldered  prelate  is 


GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SELWYN.  203 

building,  log  by  log,  his  own  hut;  to-morrow  holding  the  tiller 
of  his  twenty-one  ton  boat  as  he  journeys  to  and  fro  among 
the  scattered  islands  of  the  South  Pacific ;  now  riding  from 
redoubt  to  redoubt,  as  he  administers  comfort  alike  to  English- 
men and  Maori  in  the  New  Zealand  war ;  then  searching 
through  brushwood  and  swamp  in  order  to  solace  the  wounded 
and  the  dying;  here  designing  and  building  a  college,  with  the 
skill  of  a  trained  architect,  for  the  tuition  of  natives;  there,  in 
the  cabin  of  the  "  Undine,"  cutting  out  and  making  from  sail- 
cloth the  first  civilized  clothing  that  the  earlier  students  are  to 
wear ;  and  again  crossing  a  swollen  torrent  with  his  timid  arch- 
deacon on  his  back ;  but  always  leaving  behind  him,  whether 
in  the  heart  of  the  white  settler  or  of  the  untutored  aborigine, 
the  sacred  memory  of  a  Christian  and  a  man. 

In  1854  he  returned  to  England,  and  by  the  soul-stirring 
addresses  which  he  delivered  at  Cambridge  secured  for  mission 
work  two  kindred  spirits,  Mackenzie  and  Patteson,  the  latter 
of  whom,  alas !  soon  filled  a  martyr's  grave.  His  power  of 
administration  is  well  exemplified  by  the  fact  that  when  he 
entered  upon  his  work  at  the  antipodes  he  was  the  first  and 
only  Bishop  of  New  Zealand,  but  before  he  left,  the  diocese 
was  divided  into  seven,  namely,  six  sees  for  New  Zealand  and 
one  for  Melanasia.  In  1867  he  again  visited  England  to  attend 
the  Pan-Anglican  Synod.  While  here  the  Bishop  of  Lichfield 
died,  and  the  vacant  see  was  offered  to  Dr.  Selwyn,  but  de- 
clined. His  heart  yearned  towards  the  church  he  had  nursed, 
and  it  was  only  upon  pressure  from  Her  Majesty  that  he  reluc- 
tantly accepted  it,  visiting  his  old  diocese  once  more  in  order  to 
take  a  last  farewell  of  it.  As  the  apostle  to  the  heathen  in 
the  South  Pacific  his  name  will  be  handed  down  to  posterity ; 
and  as  the  ninetieth  Bishop  of,  Lichfield  he  will  be  held  in  rev- 
erence by  all  who  knew  him,  and  by  generations  yet  unborn. 

While  he  left  so  much  of  his  heart  in  the  other  hemisphere, 
he  gratefully  gave  himself  up  to  the  new  mission,  content  to 
change  the  romantic  scenery  of  the  Pacific,  and  those  happy 
voyages  in  the  "  Undine  "  and  "  Southern  Cross,"  for  the  smoky 
atmosphere  and  dingy  sky  of  the  "  Black  Country."  There 


204  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

was  ever  within  him  a  force  of  divine  power  which  enabled  him 
with  heroic  magnitude  of  mind  to  consecrate  his  whole  being 
to  that  work  to  which  God's  providence  was  pleased  to  call 
him ;  and  wherever  he  was,  whether  at  Eton  or  Cambridge, 
whether  a  student  at  college  or  a  curate  at  Windsor,  whether 
as  the  first  Bishop  of  New  Zealand  or  the  ninetieth  Bishop  of 
Lichfield,  he  was  felt  to  be  a  power  in  the  world.  It  will  not 
be  out  of  place  here  to  notice  that  his  life  of  hardship  in  the 
mission  diocese  was  passed  as  an  abstainer  from  alcoholic  liq- 
uors;  and,  feeling  the  amount  of  injury  done  to  the  natives  by 
the  introduction  of  strong  drink,  the  cause  of  temperance  had 
his  cordial  support. 

Space  would  fail  to  allow  of  more  than  a  glance  at  his  labors 
on  behalf  of  canal  boatmen,  for  whom  he  had  a  floating  church 
built ;  of  his  love  of  home  mission  work ;  of  his  endeavors  to 
promote  education ;  and  of  his  efforts  in  aid  of  church  exten- 
sion. The  peer  and  the  pauper,  the  begrimed  pitman  and 
the  book-learned  student,  the  sick  and  suffering,  the  convict, 
the  outcast,  and  the  fallen,  have  all  received  his  ministrations, 
and  in  trouble  he  was  the  most  acceptable  of  comforters.  Well 
might  Mr.  Gladstone  say  that  the  only  term  that  could  convey 
to  your  mind  the  true  character  of  the  man  was  "  noble." 

"His  was  the  blameless  life,  the  kindly  soul, 
The  honest  heart  that  ever  loved  the  right ; 
God  rest  the  worker  in  his  final  goal. 
The  winter  snows  fall  lightly  o'er  his  breast, 
The  pure  in  heart  has  now  a  spotless  shroud  ; 
God  rest  the  worker,  —  he  is  now  at  rest. 

No  longer  ill  or  cloud 

In  the  "'  far  land  of  light'  " 


GRACE     DARLING. 


GRACE   DARLING.  2O/ 


GRACE    DARLING. 

[BORN  1816.     DIED  1842.] 

TT  is  seldom,  we  believe,  that  self-sacrifice  and  sterling 
-*•  bravery,  as  exhibited  by  the  life-boat  crews  on  the  Durham 
and  Northumberland  coasts,  can  be  excelled  elsewhere.  The 
shore  for  many  miles  lies  unusually  exposed  to  the  terrific 
action  of  the  fiercest  gales ;  and  the  sea,  lashed  into  wild  fury, 
breaks  upon  it  with  intense  violence  and  the  voice  of  thunder. 
The  dangers  of  the  locality  are  considerably  increased  by  the 
rocky  nature  of  the  coast,  and  the  extreme  difficulty  which 
often  attends  the  efforts  of  those  in  command  of  vessels  to 
enter  the  few  small  rivers,  which  are  almost  the  only  harbors. 
At  all  points,  and  even  when  the  sea  at  other  places  is  smooth 
and  calm,  serious  casualties  occur.  Vessels,  become  helpless 
in  the  storm,  and  drift  before  the  north  or  northeast  wind, 
falling  at  length  upon  sunken  rocks  which  abound ;  and,  prob- 
ably before  human  aid  can.  be  given,  both  crew  and  passengers 
perish.  History  abounds  with  thrilling  adventure  and  miracu- 
lous escapes  which  have  been  witnessed  in  these  regions ;  and 
its  golden  charm  encircles  one  particular  spot,  which,  but  for 
the  events  of  a  few  short  hours,  might  never  have  been  con- 
sidered worthy  of  even  a  passing  thought.  In  casting  the 
eye  over  the  map,  and  tracing  the  course  of  the  east-coast 
railway-route  from  London  to  Edinburgh,  the  traveller  will 
remember  the  features  already  pointed  out,  as  well  as  the 
gigantic  development  of  rock  into  what  are  known  as  the 
Fame  (or  Feme)  Islands,  which  lie  about  five  miles  from  shore, 
opposite  Bamborough  Castle  and  Belford,  and  south  of  the 
romantic  Holy  Island  and  Old  Law.  The  voyager  who  has 
sailed  in  their  vicinity  may  also  bear  testimony  to  the  aversion 
with  which  the  captains  of  coast-bound  vessels  regard  these 
M 


208  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

demons  of  the  deep,  as  well  as  to  the  force  of  the  tide  in  the 
channels  formed  by  the  islets.  The  group  consists  of  twenty- 
five,  which  may  be  said  to  be  rock  itself  raised  above  the  level 
of  the  tide,  and  their  surface  is  destitute  of  vegetation,  being 
barren,  waste,  and  lonesome ;  yet,  notwithstanding,  they  appear 
to  us  clothed  in  curious  garments  of  legendary  lore  concern- 
ing hermits  and  ruins,  and  enchanted  castles  are  celebrated  in 
song  and  story  without  limit. 

In  order  to  avert,  at  least,  some  of  the  dangers  of  these 
rocky  cliffs  which  constantly  threatened  mariners,  a  lighthouse 
was  erected  on  the  outer,  or  Longstone  Island ;  and  this,  when 
the  present  century  was  yet  young,  became  tenanted  by  a  man 
named  Darling,  —  a  name  destined  to  be  famous  in  the  esti- 
mation of  all  who  value  a  self-sacrificing  spirit.  Here  William 
Darling  made  a  comfortable  home  for  his  wife  and  eight  chil- 
dren, and  in  the  long  leisure  hours  permitted  to  him  he  culti- 
vated it  to  such  perfection  as  few  of  its  class  seldom  reach. 
Possessing  a  good  library,  valuing  knowledge,  and  carefully 
cherishing  the  habit  of  thoroughly  mastering  all  the  details, 
he  was  a  fitting  tutor  to  his  young  family,  in  whose  minds 
he  assiduously  instilled  the  essential  rudiments  of  an  earnest 
religious  as  well  as  secular  education.  Although  professing 
with  the  Established  Church,  he  was  said  to  be  puritanical  in 
his  principles,  rigorously  excluding  from  his  home  cards,  dice, 
foolish  games,  and  everything  that  was  likely  to  influence  the 
mind  against  sound  thought  and  the  essentials  of  a  good  and 
blameless  life.  For  his  undeviating  holy  example  and  precept 
his  children  have  repeatedly  expressed  themselves  thankful ; 
and  the  picture  of  their  home  is  a  pleasant  one,  —  a  family  so 
united  that  there  was  no  room  for  conceit  or  modern  make- 
believe  to  enter  and  destroy  the  Bible  rule  of  showing  honor 
to  the  parents  whom  they  loved  as  their  life. 

William  Darling  was  also  brave  as  well  as  virtuous.  He  was 
acquainted  with  dangers  from  his  youth,  for  he  lived  with  his 
father,  who  was  keeper  of  the  light  on  Staples  Island,  a  post  of 
peril ;  and  when  transferred  to  Longstone  he  was  ever  ready 
to  go  off  in  his  boat  a,nd  bring  home  the  sufferers  so  often 


GRACE    DARLING.  2OO, 

thrown  on  the  cruel  rocks  by  the  merciless  sea.  His  sons 
partook  of  his  courage,  and  shared  with  him  the  perils;  and 
many  lives  have  been  thus  spared  to  spread  abroad  the  intelli- 
gence of  their  goodness,  and  that  of  Mrs.  Darling  and  her 
daughters,  in  the  care  and  attention  bestowed  upon  them  under 
these  distressing  circumstances. 

In  this  secluded  home  the  subject  of  this  notice  was  born, 
November  15,  1816.  She  soon  became  an  engaging  child, 
and,  as  years  flew  by,  her  desire  for  knowledge  delighted  her 
father  when  she  joined  the  others  in  their  schoolroom,  the 
lighthouse  lantern.  Devoted  to  her  parents  to  an  extent  which 
few  are,  she  seldom  cared  to  leave  home,  and  it  is  said  she  was 
never  but  one  night  from  it  up  to  the  time  of  her  illness.  Her 
leisure  hours  were  often  spent  in  exploring  the  island  for 
specimens  of  natural  history,  in  which  science  she  became 
proficient.  Often,  too,  had  she  seen  her  father  and  brothers 
launch  their  boat  on  the  stormy  waves  to  rescue  some  poor 
sufferers  from  certain  destruction,  and,  with  her  mother,  would 
watch  in  an  agony  of  suspense  until  their  return,  when  their 
help  was  needed  to  revive  the  unfortunate  people  wrecked  near 
their  home. 

At  length  Grace  was  left  alone  with  her  parents ;  her  sisters 
were  married  and  dispersed,  and  the  brothers  were  in  quest  of 
their  living  in  other  places.  She  was  now  about  twenty-two 
years  of  age,  possessing  remarkable  but  well-moderated  buoy- 
ancy of  spirits,  and  was  highly  appreciated  by  those  who  knew 
her  for  her  good  sense  and  mental  qualities,  all  of  which,  no 
doubt,  added  charms  to  her  naturally  pleasant  countenance, 
which  many  under  cause  for  devotion  and  admiration  would 
pronounce  beautiful.  Her  hitherto  quiet  life  was  now  inter- 
rupted by  an  event  which  made  her  name  famous ;  but  it  is 
recorded  to  her  lasting  credit  that  she  remained  as  humble- 
minded  as  before  it  happened.  On  the  5th  of  September, 
1838,  without  previous  indications,  a  storm  arose  suddenly 
towards  night,  and  continued  hourly  to  increase,  until  even  the 
minds  of  the  occupants  of  the  lighthouse  were  disturbed. 
They  reluctantly  retired  to  rest;  but  the  howling  of  the  storm 


210  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

and  the  roar  of  the  mighty  billows  without  were  portentous  of 
coming  evil,  and  they  listened  with  eager  and  anxious  ears. 
Grace  was,  of  the  three,  the  most  intensely  excited ;  and  just 
before  daybreak  she  thought  she  could  hear  the  shrieking  of 
human  voices  above  the  noise  of  the  tempest.  Soon  she  heard 
them  repeated,  and  ran  to  her  father  and  besought  him  to 
hasten  to  the  relief  of  the  sufferers.  They  reached  the  boat. 
Grace  leaped  in  and  seized  the  oars ;  and  it  is  said  the  stout- 
hearted, good  man  for  once  felt  himself  unequal  to  the  task  ; 
but,  seeing  the  determined  attitude  of  his  daughter,  and  roused 
by  her  importunate  appeals,  he  launched  the  boat.  Mrs.  Darl- 
ing, trembling  with  fear,  stood  on  the  rock  and  watched  the 
boat  and  its  occupants  as  it  was  tossed  upon  the  mighty  waves ; 
and  well  might  she  quail  with  such  a  sight  before  her.  Mightily 
and  dexterously  are  the  oars  pulled,  while  the  frail  boat  is  lifted 
high  up  to  the  heavens,  and  next  engulfed  in  the  great  gap- 
ing valley  of  the  wave :  then  again  it  totters  and  reels ;  but 
skill  and  wisdom  are  there,  and  these,  directed  by  an  impres- 
sive evidence  of  the  presence  of  God,  are  sufficient.  Brave 
William  Darling,  by  an  effort  at  once  both  dangerous  and  des- 
perate, and  made  in  conjunction  with  a  preconcerted  arrange- 
ment with  Grace,  leaped  upon  the  rock,  and  at  the  same 
moment  the  boat  is  rowed  away  into  the  boisterous  waters  to 
avoid  being  broken  to  pieces,  and  there  skilfully  caused  to 
ride  as  proudly  and  gracefully  as  a  bird.  Grace  had  never  had 
occasion  to  assist  in  managing  the  boat  in  such  a  case  before ; 
and  the  fact  thus  renders  the  event  unparalleled  in  the  an- 
nals of  history,  not  only  for  her  intrepidity,  but  for  the 'calm- 
ness and  faithful  devotion  to  the  cause  of  suffering  humanity. 
Eventually  the  survivors  of  the  wreck  —  nine  in  number  — 
were  rescued ;  and  one,  an  old  sailor,  when  he  beheld  the  boat, 
manned  only  by  two  persons,  come  to  the  rescue,  could  not 
restrain  his  tears,  more  especially  evincing  his  gratitude  when 
he  saw  the  delicate  and  youthful  female  who  had  risked  her 
life  in  that  awful  storm.  Among  the  sufferers  was  a  lady,  who 
had  sunk  on  the  rocks  exhausted  by  her  injuries  and  insensible, 
clasping  the  lifeless  bodies  of  her  two  children,  who  had  been 


GRACE  DARLING.  211 

killed  by  the  waves  buffeting  and  bruising  them  on  the  stones. 
These  were  taken  to  the  Longstone  Light  and  carefully  tended, 
until  their  condition  was  such  as  to  enable  them  to  be  removed 
safely. 

The  ill-fated  vessel  was  the  "  Forfarshire,"  a  steamer  belonging 
to  Dundee,  and  sailing  to  that- port  from  Hull.  From  evidence 
subsequently  obtained  it  was  proved  that  the  boilers  were  de- 
fective, and  that  the  captain,  although  fully  aware  of  a  leakage 
in  one  of  them,  still  persevered  in  sailing.  The  pressure  of 
steam  tore  away  the  frail  stopping,  and  the  escape  of  water  soon 
put  out  the  fires.  Notwithstanding,  he  would  not  then  put  into 
port,  which  he  might  have  done  with  ease  and  safety.  They 
passed  Fame  Islands  at  six  o'clock  on  the  evening  of  the  5th 
of  September,  and  made  Berwick  Harbor ;  but,  the  storm  hav- 
ing reached  almost  its  height,  the  vessel  having  no  steam  re- 
fused to  answer  the  helm,  and  drifted  like  a  log  southward  before 
the  wind  until  they  struck  upon  the  rocks.  The  crew  managed 
to  lower  a  boat  in  which  nine  persons  escaped,  and  were 
picked  up  next  morning  about  eight  o'clock,  after  being  ex- 
posed about  thirty  hours,  and  were  taken  to  Shields  by  a  pass- 
ing ship.  The  wreck  was  observed  from  North  Sunderland, 
and  a  boat  was  manned  by  seven  men,  one  of  whom  was  the 
brother  of  Grace  Darling ;  but  when  they  reached  the  wreck 
it  was  already  fast  disappearing,  and  only  dead  bodies  were 
found.  The  violence  of  the  storm  being  unabated,  they  were 
compelled  to  take  shelter  for  two  days  in  Longstone  Light, 
with  the  sufferers  already  rescued  by  Grace  and  her  father. 

The  public  mind  was  soon  aroused  by  the  heroic  conduct  of 
Grace,  and  the  nation  was  determined  to  do  her  honor.  She 
received  a  handsome  recognition  from  the  Queen  conveyed  by 
the  Duchess  of  Northumberland,  who  summoned  her  and  her 
father  to  Alnwick  Castle,  and  afterwards  extended  to  her  an 
amount  of  solicitude  which  told  more  plainly  than  words  how 
the  act  of  the  simple  maiden  had  been  appreciated.  Subscrip- 
tions also  flowed  in  rapidly  for  her  benefit,  and  her  deed  and 
name  were  immortalized  in  verse ;  besides  which  base  attempts 
were  made,  in  the  hope  of  personal  gain,  to  induce  her  to 


212  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

become  a  public  gazing-stock.  She  indignantly  refused  to 
leave  the  retirement  of  her  home,  and  wisely  continued  beside 
the  parents  she  loved.  She  was  naturally  delicate,  and  after 
some  time  signs  of  indisposition  were  evident,  when  she  was 
removed  to  the  mainland  for  change  of  air  and  scene,  the 
Duchess  of  Northumberland  taking  an  active  part  in  minister- 
ing to  the  wants  of  the  invalid.  All  means  were,  however, 
fruitless;  for  that  cruel  disease  consumption  had  already  made 
serious  havoc  with  her  constitution,  and  she  died  peacefully  at 
Bamborough,  October  20,  1842. 

In  our  notice  of  the  conduct  of  this  truly  heroic  girl  it  is 
out  of  place  to  attempt  laudation  ;  to  her  frame  of  mind  it  was 
di3tasteful  when  living,  and  no  less  dishonoring  to  her  memory 
now  she  is  passed  from  us.  The  simple  recital  of  her  deed, 
the  embodiment  'of  courage,  faith,  and  self-sacrifice  for  the 
good  of  others,  is  enough ;  and  we  are  sure .  that,  while  Eng- 
land can  produce  fathers  and  mothers  willing  to  train  their 
children  as  Grace  Darling  was  trained,  her  name  will  not  stand 
alone  in  the  record  of  noble  deeds. 


HENRY  HAVELOCK. 

[BORN  APRIL  5,  1795.    DIED  Nov.  24,  1857.] 

one  of  the  last  days  of  November,  1857,  the  army  quit- 
ted  Lucknow.  Death,  that  grim  veteran  of  the  Pale 
Horse,  rode  invisible  before  the  column,  pointing  with  ghastly 
satisfaction  to  the  trophy  of  his  prowess  that  accompanied  it. 
The  sword  fallen  from  his  nerveless  fingers,  his  ears  forever 
deaf  to  the  call  of  battle,  Havelock  moved  onwards  for  the  last 
time  among  the  heroes  he  had  so  often  led  to  victory.  At 
Alumbagh,  a  few  miles  outside  the  city,  the  army  halted.  Ex- 
cept as  they  clasped  to  their  hearts  the  little  ones  found  in 
rescued  Lucknow,  there  were  but  two  occasions  during  the 


HENRY    HAVELOCK. 


HENRY   HAVELOCK.  21$ 

Mutiny  when  those  soldiers  were  known  to  weep,  —  once  when 
beside  that  hideous  well  at  Cawnpore  officers  and  men  sat 
down  together,  and  cutting  tresses  from  the  heads  of  the  vic- 
tims counted  the  threads,  and  swore  with  tears  and  sobs  that 
for  every  hair  a  Sepoy  should  die ;  the  second  time  when  in 
the  "  Beautiful  Garden  "  of  the  princes  of  Oude  the  farewell 
that  best  befits  a  hero  thundered  over  a  new-made  grave,  and 
with  sad  hearts  the  bravest  of  the  brave  turned  away  and  left 
the  savior  of  Lucknow  to  his  rest.  He  lies  there  still,  or  what 
portion  of  him  is  mortal ;  and  in  the  wreath  that  hangs  above 
his  burial-place  the  amaranth  mingles  with  the  laurel.  For  he 
was  not  only  a  soldier,  but  a  Christian ;  and  even  when  most 
earnestly  busied  in  winning  back  to  Britain  her  Indian  empire, 
never  neglected  to  seek  additions  to  the  kingdom  of  his  Lord. 
He  had  equals  in  the  art  of  ruling  a  battle.  The  indomitable 
Campbell  and  the  chivalrous  Outram  could,  no  less  than  him- 
self, teach  Highlander  and  Sikh  how  to  conquer:  it  is  the 
peculiar  glory  of  Havelock  that  with  another  discipline  than 
that  of  earth  he  fitted  his  veterans  to  die. 

There  has  seldom  lived  a  great  man  who  had  not  reason  to 
speak  with  reverence  of  his  mother.  Havelock  was  no  excep- 
tion to  the  rule.  She  who  gave  him  birth  gave  him  also  an  ear- 
nestness of  religious  belief  that  was  too  deeply  rooted  in  his  heart 
not  to  bring  forth  life-long  fruit.  When,  after  a  vain  attempt 
to  accustom  himself  to  the  uncongenial  yoke  of  the  law,  the 
good  offices  of  Baron  Altern  made  him  second  lieutenant  in  a 
rifle  regiment,  dim  longings  for  a  purer  renown  than  glory  in 
arms  can  confer  already  haunted  him.  Eight  years  later  he 
sailed  for  India.  As  day  after  day  the  crowded  troop-ship 
moved  slowly  onward  through  the  desolate  grandeur  of  the 
Atlantic,  fervid  aspirations  were  burning  ever  higher  and  higher 
in  the  heart  of  one  among  the  officers  whom  it  carried  into  a 
tropical  exile.  Havelock  had  made  his  choice.  Henceforth 
and  until  death  he  would  fight  the  battle  of  his  Lord.  He 
knew  well  the  difficulty  of  the  work  before  him.  Service 
given  to  Satan  was  in  those  days  lightly  thought  of  in  the 
British  army;  but  to  do  the  work  of  God  was  to  insure  the 


2l6  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

setting  of  a  black  mark  against  one's  name  that  might  effec- 
tually bar  promotion.  The  soldier-missionary,  however,  had 
counted  the  cost.  The  baton  of  a  field-marshal  would  have 
'been  as  nothing  in  the  balance  against  the  duty  he  owed  to 
God. 

It  was  during  the  Burmese  War,  and  at  the  taking  of  Ran- 
goon, that  Havelock  first  saw  a  shot  fired  in  earnest.  Biogra- 
phers have  preserved  the  memory  of  a  scene  that  followed. 
They  narrate  how,  when  this  populous  Eastern  city  had  fallen, 
an  English  officer,  wandering  one  evening  among  its  barbaric 
splendors,  was  amazed,  in  passing  a  pagoda,  to  catch  the  words 
of  a  well-known  psalm.  He  traced  the  singing  to  the  chamber 
of  the  pagoda  from  whence  it  proceeded,  and  looked  in. 
There  sat  Havelock,  Bible  and  hymn-book  before  him,  a  hun- 
dred of  his  men  for  audience,  and  the  glare  of  half  a  dozen 
lamps  placed  in  the  huge  lap  of  a  Burmese  idol  giving  light 
for  the  diffusion  of  the  light  of  truth.  It  was  thus  that  our 
modern  Greatheart  ever  acted.  During  the  hardships  of  the 
most  arduous  campaign  he  found  time  to  give  Religion  her 
due,  and  when  a  battle  was  impending  he  prepared  his  men 
for  it  with  exhortation  and  prayer.  And  the  men  responded 
nobly  to  the  noble  exertions  of  their  leader.  Their  behavior 
in  camp  and  field  won  golden  opinions  even  from  those  most 
hostile  to  Havelock  and  his  system.  On  one  occasion  a  cer- 
tain regiment  was  ordered  out  to  repel  a  surprise  that  the 
enemy  had  attempted.  The  general  who  had  directed  the 
movement  learned  that  the  troops  he  wished  to  execute  it  were 
drunk.  "  Out  with  Havelock's  saints,"  cried  he ;  "  they  are 
never  drunk,  and  Havelock  is  always  ready."  A  few  minutes, 
and  the  terrible  charge  of  the  "  saints  "  had  scattered  the  Orien- 
tals opposed  to  them. 

Thus  proving,  as  Cromwell  had  proved  before  him,  that  the 
discipline  of  strong  religious  feeling  does  but  render  troops 
more  formidable  in  the  day  of  battle,  Havelock  fought  on 
through  many  arduous  years.  Returning  to  Bombay  in  May, 
1857,  from  his  successful  Persian  campaign,  the  nightmare 
tidings  of  the  Mutiny  broke  on  him  in  their  full  horror.  Delhi 


HENRY   HAVELOCK. 

was  lost,  and  Lucknovv  besieged ;  and  at  Cawnpore  a  handful 
of  Englishmen,  shut  within  intrenchments  that  a  man  might 
walk  over,  defended  their  wives  and  children  from  the  murder- 
ous wretches  led  by  Nana  Sahib,  —  that  most  finished  devil 
whom  hell  ever  sent  forth.  To  the  relief  of  these  last  Have- 
lock  instantly  hastened. 

England  has  no  more  glowing  page  in  her  annals  than  was 
furnished  during  the  next  few  months.  Sharp  and  terrible 
were  the  pens  employed  on  it,  and  it  was  written  with  the 
blood  of  heroes.  "Take  that  battery"  was  the  order  by  which 
Havelock  sought  to  test  the  mettle  of  his  Highlanders  in  the 
last  battle  outside  Cawnpore.  They  answered  well  to  the  sum- 
mons, the  granite  battalions.  The  bayonet  became  on  that 
day  a  weapon  more  dreaded  of  the  sepoys  than  any  cannon, 
and  the  sombre  silence  with  which  the  tartaned  warriors  moved 
to  victory  had  something  in  it  that,  like  death,  was  deep  and 
terrible.  The  day  lost,  Nana  Sahib  took  his  hellish  revenge. 
It  is  twenty-one  years  ago,  and  still  the  tragedy  is  fresh  in  every 
mind,  and  our  hearts  become  as  flame  at  thought  of  its  details, 
—  the  neatly  ranged  rows  of  children's  shoes  filled  with  bleed- 
ing feet;  the  women  who,  after  undergoing  outrage  not  to  be 
described,  lay  heaped  in  that  hideous  well.  England  heard 
with  a  stern  satisfaction  how  Havelock,  in  obedience  to  orders, 
blew  from  the  mouths  of  his  cannon  the  worst  of  the  murderers 
whom  he  caught.  Eager  at  once  to  rescue  and  to  punish,  the 
avengers  fought,  lion-like,  on  to  Lucknow.  That  garrison  might 
yet  be  saved. 

Nothing  like  the  scene  of  its  deliverance  has  ever  been 
imagined  by  any  writer  of  romance.  The  shout  of  rapture 
torn  from  the  Greeks  of  Xenophon  when  they  felt  in  their  nos- 
trils the  salt  freshness  of  the  sea  was  as  silence  in  the  sight  of 
Heaven  compared  with  the  cry  of  rescued  Lucknow.  The 
moment,  the  supreme  moment,  in  which  the  frenzied  inhabitants 
first  caught  the  wild  strains  of  Havelock's  bagpipes  coming 
nearer  and  clearer  as  his  Highlanders  slowly  but  surely  made  a 
road  with  the  bayonet  through  the  smoking  suburbs,  —  every 
man  a  lion  in  his  rage  as  the  horrors  of  the  siege  presented 


2l8  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS.. 

themselves  to   his  eyes,  —  that  moment  of  hope  and  suspense 
our  own  Whittier  has  thus  described:  — 

"  Oh,  they  listened,  dumb  and  breathless, 

And  they  caught  the  sound  at  last ; 
Faint  and  far  beyond  the  Goomtee 

Rose  and  fell  the  piper's  blast ! 
Then  a  burst  of  wild  thanksgiving 

Mingled  woman's  voice  and  man's : 
God  be  praised  !  —  the  march  of  Havelock  ! 

The  piping  of  the  clans  !  " 

The  rebels  held  the  suburbs ;  the  British,  the  centre  of  the 
city.  Through  streets  that  literally  blazed,  so  horrible  was  the 
fire  from  every  door  and  window,  the  slender  column  of  relief 
pushed  steadily  forward,  Havelock  on  horseback  at  its  head, 
and  calm  as  if  on  parade.  Leaving  General  Neill  and  a  third 
of  their  number  dead  in  these  fatal  streets,  the  deliverers 
came  at  length  to  the  fortified  portion  of  the  city,  and  were 
seen  by  the  besieged.  The  moon  looked  down,  and  lighted 
the  steps  of  the  women  and  children  rushing  to  meet  their 
deliverers.  A  few  minutes  and  the  single  remaining  barricade 
had  disappeared.  Then,  while  the  roar  of  the  rebel  cannon 
and  musketry  still  came  sullenly  from  the  outskirts  of  the  city, 
the  fierce  voice  of  the  pibroch  shrilled  forth,  and  to  the  notes 
of  their  own  beloved  music  the  Highlanders  entered  into  the 
presence  of  those  for  whom  their  blood  had  been  spilt.  With 
emotions  almost  too  deep  for  utterance  the  sunburnt  warriors 
snatched  babe  after  babe  to  their  breasts,  and  kissing  them 
blessed  the  God  of  battles,  whose  strong  right  arm  had  guided 
them  on  to  victory  ere  it  was  too  late. 

Two  months  later,  Havelock  died.  He  was  spared  just  long 
enough  to  witness  the  second  relief  of  Lucknow,  and,  Outram 
at  his  side,  clasp  hands  with  Colin  Campbell  under  a  storm  of 
fire.  To  say  that  all  England  mourned  for  him  is  no  figure  of 
rhetoric,  but  the  simple  truth.  His  life's  work  ended  right 
nobly;  he  lies  there  in  the  scene  of  his  triumphs.  Christian 
at  once  and  hero,  can  we  doubt  that  there  was  prepared  a 


HENRY    HAVELOCK.  219 

reward  exceeding  great  for  one  whose  deeds  shine  bright  as  the 
star  of  the  Bath  that  glittered  on  his  breast? 

The  lessons  of  his  life  are  few  and  plain.  The  mental  intri- 
cacies that  convert  biographers  into  analysts  were  absent  from 
the  character  of  Havelock.  Patient  and  self-contained,  he 
pressed  ever  towards  a  mark.  We  should  search  the  history  of 
his  career  in  vain  for  any  of  those  wayward  bursts  of  glowing 
and  delicate  emotions,  the  offspring  of  natures  in  the  highest 
degree  affectionate  and  sensitive,  and  which  cast  a  strangely 
tender  light  on  names  otherwise  too  often  dark  and  stained. 
Havelock's  spirit  was  as  keen  as  his  sword.  At  the  call  of 
duty  he  spared  neither  others  nor  himself.  The  better  fitted 
was  he  to  deal  with  that  terrible  crisis  when  the  fate  of  the 
Indian  Empire  trembled  in  the  balance.  It  has  been  said  that 
a  trace  of  coldness  is  apparent  in  this  stainless  spirit.  Just  so 
does  a  trace  of  coldness  repel  us  when  our  eyes  rest  for  the 
first  time  on  the  stainless  summit  of  Mont  Blanc.  But  as  the 
full  majesty  of  that  awful  mountain  by  degrees  dawns  on  us, 
as  glacier  piles  itself  on  glacier,  and  crag  after  crag  towers, 
snow-covered,  above  its  neighbors,  like  mighty  avalanches 
poising  themselves  in  the  moment  of  their  fall,  we  feel  our- 
selves on  the  threshold  of  one  of  Nature's  chief  cathedrals, 
and  are  spell-bound  with  admiration  and  awe.  There  is  some- 
thing of  this  sublimity  in  the  character  of  Havelock.  He 
towers  above  ordinary  men ;  but  it  is  as  Mont  Blanc  lifts  itself 
above  Greenwich  Hill,  —  he  goes  a  great  way  nearer  heaven. 
And  learning  how  this  hero  lived,  contemplating,  above  all,  the 
serene  courage  of  his  death,  we  turn  from  the  spectacle  with 
feelings  as  though  Havelock  were  an  incarnation  of  the  spirit 
of  duty,  sent  upon  earth  to  teach  men  what  priceless  virtues 
are  fortitude  and  faith. 


220  OUR  GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 


PRINCESS  ALICE  OF  ENGLAND. 

[BORN  1843.     DIED  1878.] 

Renowned  for  no  great  deeds  of  heroism  or  achievements  in  art 
or  literature;  or  of  influence  in  the  great  political  movements  of 
England  and  Europe,  amid  some  of  the  greatest  of  which  she  lived; 
or  raised  above  the  mass  of  the  people  by  any  brilliant  marks  of 
intellect  or  genius  or  talent;  yet  her  life  is  not  unworthy  of  note 
or  without  profit,  had  she  not  been  one  of  the  great  Royal  family 
of  England. 

Many  there  are  of  such  women  in  this  world,  though  no  royal 
blood  runs  in  their  veins,  and  the  world  is  better  for  them  and  they 
do  not  live  without  profit  and  good  to  the  world. 

Although  their  lives  may  be  circumscribed  within  the  limits  of  a 
.small  circle  and  their  fame  is  not  trumpeted  to  the  farthest  ends 
of  the  earth,  yet  a  silent  influence  proceeds  from  them  that  makes 
the  whole  world  sweeter  and  better. 

To  this  noble  army  of  women  belonged  the  Princess  Alice, 
though  her  position  was  not  one  of  obscurity  like  most  of  theirs. 

Born  and  bred  amid  the  pomp  and  glitter  and  brilliancy  of  the 
English  court,  amid  the  splendors  and  luxury  that  surround  that 
pioudest  and  grandest  of  all  royalty,  the  royal  family  of  England, 
she  yet  retained  the  fresh  sweetness  and  modesty  of  beautiful  maid- 
enhood, and  the  tender,  affectionate,  unselfish  and  loving  heart  of 


PRINCESS  ALICE  OF  ENGLAND.  223 

true  womanhood.  She  preferred  not  to  bask  in  the  bright  glare  of 
the  sun  of  royalty,  but  rather  to  retire  to  the  sweet  and  quiet  scenes 
of  domesticity,  and  from  there  to  enact  the  noble  woman's  part  in 
the  improvement  and  bettering  of  the  world, 

•  Princess  Alice  Maud  Mary  was  born  April  25,  1843;  being  the 
second  daughter  of  Queen  Victoria,  arid  was  the  best  known  and 
most  beloved  of  all  the  Queen's  daughters.  She  was  one  of  the 
love  pledges  of  that  most  fruitful  union  of  Prince  Albert  and 
Queen  Victoria;  a  union  cemented  by  the  tenderest  love  and  the 
greatest  affection  that  ever  made  married  life  "  a  heaven  on  earth." 

Marriages  among  royal  families  are  generally  arranged  for 
strengthening  political  ties,  and  the  affection  and  love  of  the  con- 
tracting parties  are  generally  a  matter  of  secondary  or  no  import- 
ance whatever,  in  comparison  with  a  strong  political  alliance. 

But  the  marriage  of  Queen  Victoria  and  Prince  Albert  was  a 
notable  exception,  where  love  and  affection  were  placed  first  of  all. 

Home  is  said  to  be  the  sweetest  word  in  the  English  language, 
and  what  more  fitting  thing  could  be  than  that  the  first  woman  of 
the  English  people  should  found  a  true  home,  where  all  the  true 
domestic  virtues,  the  tender  affection,  the  wife's  love,  the  husband's 
devotion  and  the  mother's  unselfishness,  has  filled  that  one  short 
word  with  so  much  meaning  to  the  English-speaking  people. 

Holding  the  scepter  over  one  of  the  greatest  nations  the  sun 
shines  on,  she  herself  bowed  to  the  scepter  held  over  her  by  a  lov- 
ing heart. 

In  such  a  home,  where  love  and  affection  were  deep  rooted  in.  the 
hearthstone,  she  found  the  inspiration  to  rule  justly  and  wisely  for 
fifty  years,  over  her  millions  of  subjects,  who  acknowledged  alle- 
giance more  to  her  true  womanly  heart  than  to  her  lofty  rank  as  the 
Queen  regent.  In  such  a  home  was  the  Princess  Alice  born,  and 
there  was  she  reared.  She  was  taught  not  to  reverence  the  kings 
of  this  earth,  but  the  King  of  Kings  who  rules  over  all  and  whose 
kingdom  is  the  "  Kingdom  of  Heaven."  She  was  taught  humil- 
ity and  all  Christian  virtues;  that  although  she  was  the  daughter  of 
the  greatest  Queen  to  whom  millions  of  subjects  in  every  part  of 
the  globe  bow  in  willing  submission,  yet  was  she  no  more  in  the 

15 


224  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

sight  of  the  King  of  Kings  than  the  humblest  subject  in  the  low- 
liest cottage  in  her  majesty's  dominions.  In  this  atmosphere  of 
affection  and  love  Alice  grew  up  the  pride  and  joy  of  her  noble 
father  and  royal  mother.  Her  intellect  was  not  neglected,  but  first 
of  all  the  heart  was  cultivated. 

In  1862  came  the  cruelest  blow  that  can  be  inflicted  upon  a  loving 
wife.  Prince  Albert,  who  had  been  a  most  true  and  loving  hus- 
band, was  stricken  down  by  the  grim  reaper  Death,  who  spares 
not  the  noblest  prince  or  poorest  peasant.  Victoria  was  pierced 
to  the  heart  by  this  blow. 

Grief  comes  to  all.  Into  the  palace  it  enters  as  well  as  the  hovel. 
Frowning  battlements,  the  deepest  moats,  the  thousand  guards  with 
glittering  arms,  cannot  keep  it  back.  Silently  it  steals  in  and  presses 
its  iron  hand  on  the  tender  heart  of  the  noble  Queen. 

In  that  dark  hour,  in  that  overwhelming  sorrow,  a  noble  daugh- 
ter had  been  raised  up  to  comfort  her,  and  the  bitter  pangs  of  her 
grief  were  somewhat  sweetened  by  the  dear  consolation  of  her 
daughter,  the  Princess  Alice.  Tenderly  had  she  ministered 
to  her  dear  father  in  his  last  illness,  and  tenderly  now  did  she 
bring  consolation  to  her  grief-stricken  mother.  "Her  name  became 
synonymous  with  a  father's  farewell  and  a  mother's  consolation." 

She  endeared  herself  to  the  whole  English  nation  by  her  tender 
womanliness,  by  the  sweetness  and  Christian  strength  of  her  char- 
acter upon  which  her  father  leaned  in  the  hour  of  death,  and  her 
mother  in  the  time  of  her  deep  grief. 

July  i,  1862,  Princess  Alice  was  married  to  Prince  Ludwig  of 
Hesse-Darmstadt,  following  entirely  the  dictates  of  her  own 
heart  and  yielding  no  unwilling  obedience  to  the  commands  of 
state  policy,  where  affection,  did  not  prompt. 

Ludwig  was  but  the  heir  to  one  of  those  petty  German  principal- 
ities, but  he  became  the  possessor  of  the  broad  and  glorious  king- 
dom of  a  loving  woman's  heart. 

The  first  year  or  two  of  their  most  happy  married  life  was  spent 
in  England,  where  a  daughter  was  born  to  them  at  Windsor  Cas- 
tle. Four  other  daughters  and  two  sons  blessed  their  union.  But 
of  the  last  two  only  the  eldest  is  living. 


PRINCESS  ALICE   OF  ENGLAND.  22$ 

The  year  1870  will  long  be  sadly  remembered  in  France  and 
Germany.  All  over  the  peaceful  thriving  fields  of  France,  death, 
destruction  and  ruin  were  written  in  letters  of  blood.  Beyond  the 
Rhine,  on  the  German  side,  armies  had  been  mustering,  arms  had 
been  brightened,  cannon  been  loaded  with  ball  and  bomb,  bayo- 
nets glittered,  and  swords  had  been  sharpened. 

Bluff  Bismarck  had  laid  his  finger  on  part  of  the  map  of  Europe, 
and  said,  "We  will  write  the  name  of  Germany  there  instead  of 
France.  Vorwarts!" 

On  the  French  side  of  the  Rhine  the  gay  Frenchman  was 
dancing,  and  singing,  and  sipping  the  wine  from  his  fruitful  vine- 
yards. Then  came  the  cannon's  thunderous  summons  to  war. 

The  gay  Frenchman,  ever  ready  to  dance  and  to  sing,  or  to  fight 
and  to  die  with  almost  equal  gayety,  sprang  to  arms.  But  too  late! 

The  irresistible  tide  of  Germans  could  not  be  stayed,  and  the 
red  flood  of  war  spread  all  over  the  verdant  vineyards  and  fruitful 
fields  of  France. 

The  victorious  Germans  pressed  on  to  the  very  walls  of  Paris 
but  only  after  they  had  mowed  down  the  opposing  ranks  of  the 
brave  French  and  left  in  piles  their  dead,  and  maimed,  and  wounded 
bodies  mingled  with  the  heaps  of  their  own  comrades  on  many  a 
bloody  field. 

The  beautiful,  smiling  vineyards  were  trampled  into  the  bloody 
mire  by  the  iron  hoof  of  war;  the  blackened,  smoking  ruins  of 
many  happy  homes  and  villages,  the  down-trodden  grain,  the 
brooks  and  streams  flowing  with  blood  and  all  the  awful  hiero- 
glvphics  told  the  terrible  tale  of  the  horrors  of  war.  Men,  "  made 
in  the  image  of  their  Creator,"  lay  in  ghastly  heaps,  killed  and 
maimed,  and  torn,  and  wounded  by  their  brother  men. 

Into  the  midst  of  these  horrible  scenes  of  carnage,  of  "man's  in- 
humanity to  man  "  mid  the  shrieks  and  groans  of  the  wounded 
and  dying,  before  the  smoke  of  battle  had  hardly  lifted  from  the  field, 
came  tender  women,  upheld  in  all  the  horror  of  the  battlefield  by  a 
divine  compassion;  angels,  to  administer  to  the  wounded  and  the  dy- 
ing; to  hold  the  cup  of  water  to  the  parched  and  blackened  lips,  to 
bind  up  the  gaping  wounds,  to  stay  the  life's  blood  so  fast  flowing, 


226  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

to  take  the  message  breathed  forth  with  the  last  gasp  of  life  to 
the  dear  wife  or  sweetheart,  or  father,  mother,  or  kindred  in  the 
distant  Fatherland,  or  nearer  home  in  France. 

Tender,  trembling,  timid  women  came  amid  all  these  horrors  to 
alleviate  the  terrible  sufferings  that  awful  war  leaves  in  its  blank 
path.  Frenchman  or  German,  she  spread  her  cloak  of  Christian 
charity  over  them  both  alike. 

In  this  grand,  noble  work  the  Princess  Alice  was  foremost. 
She  was  a  constant  visitor  to  the  hospitals,  shrinking  not  from  the 
sight  of  blood  or  ghastly  wounds  if  she  could  save  the  poor 
soldier  one  pang  of  pain  or  send  a  gleam  of  comfort  or  hope  into 
the  dark  pathway  leading  down  to  death. 

She  established  the  Alice  Hospital  and  was  regular  in  her  visits 
to  it.  She  also  established  the  Alice  Frau-Verem,  an  association 
of  women  for  charitable  purposes. 

She  was  zealous  in  many  reform  movements,  and  was  a  gen- 
erous patron  of  education  and  literature.  She  endeared  herself  to 
the  whole  German  people,  and  her  memory  will  ever  be  held  in 
affection  and  esteem. 

Wherever  she  could  increase  the  stock  of  good  and  happiness, 
or  advance  the  right,  there  was  she  ever  ready  with  heart  and 
hand  and  purse. 

She  wished  to  stand  before  the  world,  not  as  the  daughter  of  the 
Queen  of  England,  but  as  a  noble  woman  doing  her  duty  wherever 
she  found  it.  She  wished  only  for  the  homage  rendered  to  a 
noble  womanhood,  and  not  the  hollow  homage  to  her  royal  rank. 

Her  only  surviving  son  she  sent  to  a  kindergarten,  stipulating 
positively  that  no  distinction  whatever  was  to  be  made  or  per- 
mitted between  him  and  the  other  pupils.  He  was  to  receive  no 
benefits  or  favors  which  his  rank  alone  might  bring  him,  but  was 
to  be  treated  only  according  to  his  own  personal  merits. 

On  December  14,  1878,  Princess  Alice  yielded  up  her  pure, 
gentle  soul,  following  a  few  days  after  her  youngest  daughter  and 
dying  of  the  same  disease,  diphtheria. 

She  died  on  the  anniversary  of  the  death  of  her  dear  father,  the 
Prince  Consort,  when  all  the  Royal  family  were  assembled  as  was 
their  solemn  custom  to  observe  the  usual  memorial  services. 


PRINCESS  ALICE  OF  ENGLAND.  22; 

Then  when  death  had  taken  her,  was  placed  on  Princess  Alice 
brow  a  crown  far  brighter  than  that  worn  by  her  royal  mother 
here  on  earth. 

She  proved  herself  worthy  of  ranking  among  the  "  benefactors 
of  the  world,"  and  that  was  the  rank  she  esteemed  the  most. 
From  the  lofty  height  on  which  her  rarik  placed  her  she  was  a 
conspicuous  object  and  the  eyes  of  all  the  world  beheld  her,  and  to 
the  world  she  gave  an  example  of  lofty  noble  womanhood;  teach- 
ing the  lesson  that  the  nobility  of  a  Christian  life  is  greater  than 
all  the  nobility  conferred  by  Kings  and  Queens. 


228  OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 


GEORGE    MOORE. 

[BORN  APRIL  9,  1806.    DIED  Nov.  21,  1876.] 

FEW  lives  can  compare,  for  earnestness  of  purpose  and 
uncompromising  sense  of  duty,  with  that  of  George 
Moore,  the  merchant  and  philanthropist.  A  self-made  man, 
he  was  entirely  free  from  that  narrowness  of  mind  which  so 
often  accompanies  hardly  won  success.  His  life  was  an  epit- 
ome of  noble  deeds,  of  work  conscientiously  carried  out  from 
the  highest  motives,  and  having  for  its  object  the  welfare  of 
others.  He  aptly  illustrated  his  own  saying  that  "  sympathy  is 
the  great  secret  of  life ;  "  for  the  help  that  he  so  abundantly 
gave  in  money  was  far  outweighed  by  the  deep  feeling  for 
the  misery  of  others  which  dictated  it.  He  was  benevolent 
from  principle,  and  his  charities  were  as  judicious  as  they  were 
wide-spread. 

George  Moore  was  born  at  Mealsgate,  in  Cumberland,  upon 
the  pth  of  April,  1806.  His  father  was  a  Cumberland  "  states- 
man," of  rank  equivalent  to  that  of  a  yeoman  in  other  parts  of 
England.  His  ancestors  had  lived  upon  their  own  land  in  the 
parish  of  Torpenhow,  near  the  market-town  of  Wigton,  for 
more  than  three  hundred  years.  George  was  but  six  years  old 
when  his  mother  died.  She  was  laid  out  in  the  parlor;  and  the 
boy,  running  in  from  the  fields,  first  realized  his  loss  when, 
finding  her  inattentive  to  his  call,  he  touched  her  face.  The 
shock  was  so  great  that  during  his  long  life  he  never  lost  the 
terrible  impression  of  death  his  mind  then  received.  Of  his 
father  George  always  spoke  in  terms  of  respect,  and  frequently 
declared  that  he  owed  his  own  upright  character  to  the  influ- 
ence of  his  parent's  integrity  and  love  of  truth. 

The  lad  was  sent  to  his  first  school  at  the  age  of  eight ;   it 


GEORGE    MOORE. 


GEORGE   MOORE.  231 

was  two  miles  distant  from  Mealsgate,  and  the  education  pro- 
vided was  of  the  most  miserable  description.  The  master, 
whom  the  boys  nicknamed  Blackbird  Wilson,  from  his  habit  of 
singing,  was  an  illiterate  old  man,  much  addicted  to  drinking. 
The  little  knowledge  he  conveyed  to  the  boys  he  put  into  them 
by  brute  force.  George  Moore  pithily  remarks,  "  The  wonder 
is  that  he  did  not  break  our  skulls ;  perhaps  he  calculated  upon 
their  thickness."  At  the  age  of  twelve  George  was  sent  to  a 
finishing  school  at  Blennerhasset,  but  there  he  remained  only 
one  quarter,  for  which  his  father  paid  eight  shillings.  The 
master  was  a  superior  man,  and  for  the  first  time  the  boy 
realized  the  value  of  learning  and  began  to  regret  his  own 
ignorance.  The  idea  of  remaining  a  mere  farm-laborer  became 
distasteful  to  him ;  he  determined  to  begin  the  battle  of  life 
for  himself. 

The  best  opening  that  presented  itself  was  a  small  one.  He 
was  apprenticed  to  a  draper  in  Wigton,  named  Messenger. 
The  first  two  years  of  his  life  there  were  made  miserable  by 
the  tyranny  of  an  elder  apprentice.  It  had  been  arranged  that 
he  should  sleep  at  his  master's  house,  and  take  his  meals  at  the 
Half-Moon  Inn,  near  by,  —  an  injudicious  arrangement  which 
brought  him  into  contact  with  the  lowest  and  most  depraved 
tharacters.  When,  after  a  time,  a  young  boy  was  placed  under 
him, —  an  apprentice  who  had  the  command  of  money,  —  the 
two  lads  amused  themselves  with  gambling,  betting,  and  drinking. 
The  philanthropist  always  said  that  his  apprenticeship  would 
not  bear  reflection.  Fortunately  for  George's  future,  his  gam- 
bling came  to  the  knowledge  of  his  master,  who  threatened  him 
with  instant  dismissal,  and  was  only  induced  to  relent  upon  the 
intercession  of  a  friend.  This  brought  the  lad  to  a  sense  of  his 
folly ;  he  entered  his  name  at  a  night  school,  and  determined 
to  devote  his  leisure  to  education. 

When  the  four  years  of  his  apprenticeship  were  passed, 
George,  in  spite  of  much  opposition  from  his  father  and  favor- 
ite sister  Mary,  determined  to  seek  his  fortune  in  London  ; 
and  at  length,  obtaining  a  reluctant  consent,  he  started  for 
London  in  the  coach  leaving  Carlisle,  and  with  his  hair-trunk, 


232  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

containing  his  possessions  and  what  to  him  appeared  the  large 
sum  of  thirty  pounds,  was  set  down  in  London  upon  Maunday 
Thursday,  1825.  He  was  provided  with  introductions  to  cer- 
tain Cumberland  men  in  the  metropolis,  and  anticipated  little 
difficulty  in  finding  employment. 

But  discouragement  was  to  be  his  portion.  No  one  was 
anxious  to  procure  the  services  of  the  raw,  uncouth  country 
lad.  Day  succeeded  day,  and  ill-success  attended  every  effort. 
He  could  not  endure  to  send  such  bad  news  to  his  father ;  he 
waited,  hoping  against  hope.  At  last  despair  of  obtaining 
employment  in  London  took  possession  of  him.  He  deter- 
mined to  go  to  America.  His  mind  made  up,  he  called  to  say 
good-by  to  one  of  the  young  men  employed  in  Swan  and 
Edgar's,  when  he  learned  that  a  Mr.  Ray,  of  Flint,  Ray,  &  Co., 
had  been  asking  after  him.  He  at  once  hurried  to  see  him,  and 
Mr.  Ray,  himself  a  Cumberland  man,  engaged  him,  probably 
out  of  pity,  and  because  he  knew  something  of  his  family. 
He  was  to  commence  with  a  salary  of  £30  a  year. 

He  had  much  to  contend  with.  His  north-country  speech 
and  awkward  manners  provoked  the  mirth  of  his  fellows  in  the 
warehouse ;  but  he  brought  his  strong  will  to  bear  upon  both, 
and  in  a  short  time  had  proved  himself  so  energetic,  willing, 
and  obliging  as  to  gain  the  approval  of  his  employers. 

When  he  had  been  six  months  at  Mr.  Ray's  the  romance  of 
his  life  commenced.  He  saw  a  bright-eyed  little  girl,  his  mas- 
ter's daughter,  and  at  once  decided  that  if  ever  he  married  she 
should  be  his  wife.  The  ridicule  such  an  avowal  brought  down 
upon  the  uncouth  Cumberland  lad  may  well  be  imagined. 
But  George  was  proof  against  ridicule.  The  idea  once  started 
became  the  ruling  motive  of  his  life.  It  saved  him  from  much 
temptation ;  it  restrained  and  purified  him. 

He  might  have  remained  years  in  Mr.  Ray's  employment 
but  for  a  false  accusation  of  theft,  which  nearly  resulted  in  his 
ruin  and  which  made  him  resolve  to  leave.  Through  the  kind- 
ness of  Mr.  Ray  he  was  engaged  by  .the  firm  of  Fisher,  Stroud, 
and  Robinson,  of  Watling  Street,  then  the  first  lace-house  in 
the  city,  at  a  salary  of  .£40  a  year. 


GEORGE   MOORE.  233 

George  had  many  things  still  to  learn ;  but  his  indomitable 
resolution  overcame  all  the  difficulties  which  met  him,  and  he 
gained  the  respect  of  all  in  the  office.  He  was  shortly  pro- 
moted, and  after  a  time  was  made  town  traveller  for  the  firm. 
Then  it  was  that  his  great  qualities  were  recognized.  The 
amount  of  work  he  accomplished  was  amazing,  and  after  an 
experience  of  eighteen  months  his  employers  decided  that  he 
was  worthy  of  a  wider  field  of  action.  He  was  made  country 
traveller.  His  success  in  obtaining  orders  was  so  great,  and 
his  enthusiasm  for  his  work  so  unbounded,  that  he  became 
known  among  his  associates  as  the  Napoleon  of  Watling  Street. 
After  six  months'  success  as  a  country  traveller  he  was  sent  to 
Ireland,  to  see  what  could  be  done  for  the  firm  there.  At 
Dublin  he  met  Groucock,  the  traveller  who  had  hitherto  mo- 
nopolized the  lace  trade,  but  who  now  found  himself  entirely 
outdone  by  his  energetic  competitor.  He  therefore  determined 
to  come  to  terms,  and  offered  George  Moore  the  high  salary  of 
£500  to  travel  for  his  firm  instead  of  Fisher's.  George  refused 
to  leave  his  employers  unless  for  a  partnership  ;  and  Groucock 
to  secure  his  services  agreed  td  his  terms,  and  in  1830,  at  the 
age  of  twenty-three,  George  Moore  entered  the  firm  of  Grou- 
cock and  Copestake  as  junior  partner. 

The  first  year  of  his  new  life  was  not  very  satisfactory  in  its 
results,  but  it  was  succeeded  by  a  period  of  unprecedented  suc- 
cess. George  Moore  worked  indefatigably.  Sixteen  hours  a 
day  were  usually  devoted  to  business,  and  he  generally  re- 
mained up  two  nights  a  week.  One  great  help  in  his  career 
was  the  little  need  he  had  of  sleep,  and  the  faculty  he  possessed 
of  sleeping  at  will.  His  life  suited  him;  it  was  full  of  interest, 
variety,  and  adventure.  At  the  end  of  three  years  his  services 
were  too  valuable  to  be  dispensed  with.  He  was  made  equal 
partner,  with  a  third  share  in  the  profits. 

He  was  now  in  a  position  to  marry.  Bent  upon  the  realiza- 
tion of  his  romance,  he  told  his  secret,  and  offered  himself  to 
the  young  lady  he  had  so  long  loved.  He  was  refused.  This, 
the  keenest  disappointment  of  his  life,  could  not  discourage 
him.  He  threw  himself  still  more  ardently  into  his  work,  and 


234  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

waited  for  another  five  years.  Then  he  tried  his  fortune  once 
more.  This  time  he  was  successful,  and  upon  the  I2th  of 
August,  1840,  he  married  Eliza  Ray. 

A  few  years  later,  by  the  advice  of  his  physicians,  he  visited 
America.  It  was  after  his  return  to  London  that  his  philan- 
thropical  efforts  began.  He  established  a  lace  factory  at  Not- 
tingham, where  nearly  two  hundred  women  were  employed ; 
and  it  became  one  of  the  cares  of  his  life  to  attend  to  their 
comfort  and  needs. 

His  interest  in  the  life  of  commercial  travellers  led  to  the 
foundation  of  the  schools  for  their  orphans,  which  to  the  end 
of  his  life  he  watched  with  the  keenest  interest.  Not  content 
with  giving  money,  which  his  increasing  wealth  made  easy,  he 
spent  much  of  his  time  in  canvassing  for  the  various  charitable 
institutions  which  came  under  his  notice.  His  early  .philan- 
thropical  efforts  arose  from  the  natural  benevolence  of  his 
heart;  but  an  illness  which 'overtook  him  in  1851  awoke  him  to 
a  sense  of  his  own  short-comings,  and  after  his  recovery  a 
marked  difference  was  observable  in  the  method  of  his  charity. 
He  no  longer  acted  upon  impulse,  but  from  deeply  religious 
motives.  He  was  no  longer  content  to  give  bodily  help  to 
others,  but  concerned  himself  greatly  about  their  spiritual  wel- 
fare and  needs. 

From  this  time  the  history  of  his  life  becomes  a  record  of 
noble  deeds.  It  is  impossible  to  attempt  an  enumeration  of 
his  charitable  undertakings.  All  the  energy  of  his  nature  was 
devoted,  first,  to  finding  out  misery,  and  then  to  alleviating  it. 
He  spent  an  immense  ^.nount  of  time  and  money  in  schemes 
for  the  improvemeD4-  of  education  in  his  native  county,  found- 
ing and  endowing  schools,  and  promoting  competitive  examina- 
tions. Much  of  the  good  he  accomplished  was  done  secretly. 
He  privately  paid  fees  for  twenty  years  to  enable  men  and 
women  who  ought  to  have  been  married  to  be  united  in  matri- 
mony. He  sought  out  the  cases  of  poor  clergymen  with  large 
families  and  insufficient  incomes,  and  sent  anonymous  Christ- 
mas boxes  to  them.  Refuges  for  the  homeless  and  fallen, 
reformatories  for  those  leaving  prisons,  hospitals,  convalescent 


THEOBALD     MATHEW. 


THEOBALD    MATHEW.  237 

homes,  schemes  for  boarding  out  pauper  children,  all  in  turn 
claimed  his  attention. 

In  1871,  during  the  terrible  siege  of  Paris,  George  Moore 
was  one  of  the  most  active  members  of  the  Mansion  House 
Relief  Fund,  and  was  selected  to  go  to  Paris,  as  soon  as  the 
gates  were  open,  to  superintend  the  distribution  of  relief.  His 
heart  was  wrung  with  the  terrible  sights  he  witnessed.  Upon 
his  return  his  rest  was  disturbed  by  his  recollection  of  the  hor- 
rors of  the  famine-stricken  city.  He  paid  another  visit  after 
the  sacrileges  of  the  Commune.  The  Communists  had  spared 
the  warehouses  of  the  Englishman  who  had  been  so  active  in 
succoring  them. 

The  death  of  the  greatest  philanthropist  of  modern  times 
was  the  result  of  an  accident.  He  was  thrown  down  by  a  run- 
away horse,  while  speaking  with  a  friend  in  the  High  Street  of 
Carlisle.  Falling  upon  his  right  side,  his  head  struck  heavily 
upon  the  ground.  He  was  at  once  carried  to  the  Grey  Goat 
Inn,  the  same  at  which,  fifty-two  years  earlier,  he  had  slept  the 
night  before  he  started  in  the  Carlisle  coach  for  London. 
There  in  a  small  back  room  he  breathed  his  last,  upon  the  2ist 
of  November,  1876,  twenty-four  hours  after  the  accident.  To 
quote  from  his  epitaph,  he  was  "  a  yeoman's  son,  not  born  to 
wealth ;  but  by  ability  and  industry  he  gained  it,  and  ever  used 
it  as  a  steward  of  God  for  the  furtherance  of  all  good  works." 


THEOBALD  MATHEW. 

[BORN  OCT.  10,  1790.     DIED  DEC.  5,  1856.] 

ON  the  loth  of  April,  1838,  Father  Mathew  headed  a  weak 
and    inefficient  "body "of  three  —  a  clergyman  of  the 
English    Church,  a  Unitarian,  and  a  Quaker;    grand  pioneers 
they  were  of  a  great  reformation  —  in  the  city  of  Cork.     Two 
years  afterwards  his  temperance  troops  numbered  nearly  three 


238  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

millions,  —  children,  women,  and  men.  The  words  he  had 
uttered  when  he  joined  "  the  three "  were  these :  "  Here  goes 
in  the  name  of  God  !  "  He  signed  their  pledge  and  began  the 
work. 

In  "  Ireland :  its  Scenery  and  Character,"  Mr.  S.  C.  Hall  writes 
thus  of  Father  Mathew  and  his  great  work:  "The  good  priest 
was  not  young  when  that  sword  of  salvation  was  drawn  in  the 
cause  of  God.  He  was  remarkably  active  and  energetic.  His 
personal  appearance  aided  his  mission.  Rather  above  than 
under  the  middle  size;  not  stout,  but  not  thin;  the  expression 
of  his  countenance  was  indescribably  sweet  and  winning;  the 
features  were  sharply  cut  and  prominent  (with  the  character- 
istics that  are  usually  supposed  to  accompany  good  descent, 
— '  good  blood,'  —  his  progenitors  were  of  the  aristocracy, 
although  they  bore  the  bar-sinister  on  their  shield)  ;  he  might 
have  been  called  handsome,  but  he  had  a  beauty  of  person 
that  can  never  exist  without  beauty  of  soul ;  the  mind  spoke 
in  the  face;  it  was  the  language  of  gentleness,  patience,  en- 
durance, tenderness,  loving-kindness,  trustfulness,  and  hopeful 
affection,  such  as  I  have  never  seen  so  strongly  marked  in  any 
one  of  the  thousands  of  distinguished  and  good  men  on  whom 
I  have  looked.  I  could  have  accepted  him  as  an  embodiment 
of '  the  beloved  apostle ;  '  and  I  am  very  sure  he  was  one  of 
the  earth-darlings  of  his  Lord ! 

"  It  would  require  a  volume  to  describe  Ireland  prior  to  the 
advent  of  the  apostle.  It  is  among  the  most  marvellous  of 
modern  miracles  that  the  wine  and  whiskey  drinkers  of  the 
'  better  '  classes  were  led  to  reason  and  reflect  upon,  and 
ultimately  were  converted  by,  .what  they  witnessed  as  to  the 
effects  of  total  abstinence  in  their  poorer  neighbors  and 
dependants.  No  doubt,  other  influences  were  at  work,  and 
largely  contributed  to  induce  temperance  among  those  who 
were  out  of  Father  Mathew's  reach;  but  it  was  not  until  1840 
that  temperance  was  considered,  in  Ireland,  respectable,  and 
drunkenness  degrading;  and  that  was  after  the  good  priest 
had  carried  conviction  to  high  and  low.  I  maintain,  speak- 
ing from  actual  knowledge  and  experience,  that  the  change 


THEOBALD    MATHEW.  239 

which  a  very  short  time  wrought  in  the  habits  of  the  upper 
orders  was  as  certainly  the  effect  of  Father  Mathew's  teaching, 
as  it  is  that  he  converted  millions  of  the  lower  classes  from 
drunkenness  to  sobriety. 

"  The  results  that  followed  were  shown  by  certain  Govern- 
ment '  returns.'  I  may  barely  allude  to  them.  But  it  was  easy 
to  calculate  the  immense  saving  to  the  State,  as  a  consequence 
of  the  absence  of  crimes  and  the  scarcity  of  prosecutions. 
Compare  1837  with  1841.  In  the  one  year  there  were  247 
homicides,  in  the  other  105;  robberies,  725 — 257;  robberies 
of  arms,  246 — in.  In  1839,  the  number  of  'committals' 
was  12,000;  in  1845,  the  number  barely  passed  7,000.  In 
1839,66  persons  were  sentenced  to  death;  in  1842,  the  num- 
ber was  25,  and  in  1846,  14.  In  1839,916  persons  were  sen- 
tenced to  transportation;  in  1846,  504.  And  as  to  the  duty 
on  spirits,  the  '  loss '  to  the  revenue  was  large.  In  1839, 
duty  was  paid  on  more  than  12,000,000  gallons  of  whiskey,  to 
say  nothing  of  that  which  paid  no  duty.  In  1843  and  1844, 
the  amount  was  much  less  than  half.  Naturally  and  necessarily 
the  State  gained  more  than  it  lost,  indirectly  and  directly. 
The  material  prospect  of  Ireland  was  augmented  in  a  hundred 
ways ;  and  the  money  saved,  when  not  laid  by,  was  expended 
in  such  manufactured  luxuries  as  warm  clothing,  feather  beds, 
*  stocks  of  furniture,'  tea  and  coffee  and  sugar.  No  doubt 
vested .  interests  were  terribly  interfered  with ;  distillers  were 
ruined ;  among  others,  the  brother  of  Theobald  Mathevv,  who 
followed  that  accursed  calling.  '  Change  your  trade,'  wrote 
the  priest  to  the  distiller,  '  and  turn  your  premises  into  facto- 
ries for  flour.'  Landlords  who  had  let  their  houses  to  publi- 
cans had  to  lower  their  rents  or  do  without  any ;  the  doctors 
had  little  to  do,  and^  the  lawyers  less ;  faction  fights  became 
rarities ;  fairs  and  '  patterns  '  were  made  '  lonesome ;  '  emis- 
saries from  secret  societies  were  in  despair,  —  Father  Mathew 
'  proclaimed  '  them  as  '  full  of  danger,  of  vice,  of  iniquity.' 

"  His  work  was  immense  —  that  is  a  poor  word  to  describe 
his  labors  —  from  the  day  he  began  it  to  that  of  his  removal. 

Within  two  years  after  the  memorable  10th  of  April,  1838, 
16    * 


240  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Father  Mathew  had  travelled  through  every  district  of  Ireland, 
had  held  meetings  in  all  the  towns  and  in  many  of  the  villages, 
and  the  pledge  had  been  taken  by  upwards  of  two  millions 
and  a  half  of  the  population.  That  was  not  all :  he  visited 
England  and  Scotland,  and  spent  two  years  working  among  his 
countrymen,  in  the  United  States.  In  truth,  his  labor  was 
superhuman ;  the  good  he  did,  incalculable.  At  length  his 
physical  strength  gave  way;  '  the  brain  o'erwrought,'  the  con- 
tinual toil,  travelling  often  night  and  day,  taking  little  rest, 
especially  the  perpetual  anxiety  which  those  only  with  restricted 
means  and  great  needs  can  rightly  estimate,  told  terribly  upon 
his  constitution.  There  had  been  no  self-indulgence  to  weaken, 
no  luxurious  ease  to  create  rust;  his  was  that  precious  gift, — 
a  healthy  mind  in  a  healthy  body;  and  so  he  was  enabled  to 
Ho  the  work,  not  of  two,  but  of  ten.  He  said  he  would  '  die 
in  harness/  and  he  did.  Even  after  a  paralytic  seizure  he  gave 
the  pledge  to  thousands ;  and  when  he  had  succumbed  to  an 
attack  of  apoplexy  and  lay  on  his  death-bed,  he  could  hear  the 
penitent,  and  with  crippled  hands  make  the  sign  of  the  cross ! 

"  Alas !  the  blessing  of  temperance  in  Ireland  is  but  a  mem- 
ory ;  the  people  of  Ireland  have  forgotten  its  apostle  and  mar- 
tyr, and  the  curse  is  as  foul  and  fatal  to-day  as  it  was  before 
that  memorable  morning  of  April,  1838.  Not  quite:  it  never 
can  be  so ;  for  drunkenness  instead  of  a  glory  has  become  a 
reproach.  That  is,  at  all  events,  the  bequest  of  Father  Mathew 
to  his  country  and  to  mankind,  the  value  of  which  time  can- 
not lessen.  The  drunkard  now,  instead  of  brawling  in  triumph 
all  the  way  from  the  public  to  his  home,  skulks  'through  by- 
ways, and  prefers  that  his  neighbors  do  not  see  him.  A  gentle- 
man drunk  is  now  as  rare  a  sight  in  Ireland  as  it  is  in  England. 
What  pictures  I  might  draw,  to  illustrate  Ireland  as  I  knew  Ire- 
land sixty  years  ago !  The  evils  of  intemperance  and  the 
advantages  of  temperance  have  been  shown  in  many  ways. 
A  ban  has  been  put  upon  the  vice ;  authors  do  not  describe  it 
as  venial  or  jovial  or  '  glorious ;  '  artists  no  longer  class  it 
with  the  picturesque ;  the  pulpit  and  the  platform  assail  it  with 
the  language  of  abhorrence;  it  is  execrated  as  the  mighty 


THEOBALD   MATHEW.  '24! 

impediment  to  social  and  moral  progress ;  while  the  religious 
'  of  all  denominations  '  beat  it  down  as  the  barrier  that  out- 
rages nature,  leads  from  God,  and  infers  a  social  hell  here  and 
the  hell  of  remorse  hereafter.  Yes  !  another  generation  will 
find  it  hard  to  credit,  and  be  very  reluctant  to  believe,  that  a 
dozen  of  the  representatives  of  Irish  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren in  Parliament  have  striven,  by  means  monstrous  and 
wicked,  to  continue  and  uphold  THE  CURSE !  I  will  not  write 
of  these  Irish  representatives  in  words  I  should  of  myself  ap- 
ply to  them ;  I  will  rather  use  the  language  '  Father  Mathew ' 
would  have  used,  — '  God  have  mercy  on  them  and  forgive 
them !  ' " 


III. 


LITERATURE    AND    ART. 


GEOFFREY     CHAUCER. 


GEOFFREY   CHAUCER. 

[DATE  OF  BIRTH  UNCERTAIN.    DIED  OCT.  25,  1400.] 

A  S  capricious  in  its  dealings  with  genius  as  Dame  Fortune 
-^*  herself  could  be,  chronology,  that  can  give  the  year  in 
which  still  older  poets  came  into  the  world,  is  perplexed  as  to 
the  date  of  birth  of  Geoffrey  Chaucer.  That  he  died  in  the 
year  1400,  and  was  laid  in  the  Abbey  of  Westminster  —  a  then 
unfinished  sepulchre,  begun  two  or  three  centuries  previous  — 
are  facts  duly  written  in  the  chronicles  of  the  Plantagenets. 
Whether,  however,  the  first  of  the  heads  that,  when  the  poetic 
frenzy  was  at  length  out  of  them,  have  found  a  cold  pillow  in  our 
national  cemetery  was  whitened  with  the  snows  of  threescore 
years  and  ten,  or  was  that  of  a  man  hardly  yet  entered  upon 
old  age,  is  a  riddle  for  which  the  researches  of  antiquaries  have 
provided  no  assured  solution. 

The  earliest  record  concerning  the  poet  that  history  has  had 
the  fortune  to  preserve  shows  him  a  page  in  the  household  of  the 
Lady  Elizabeth,  wife  to  Lionel,  son  of  Edward  III.  Crecy  and 
Poitiers  were  then  household  words  in  rejoicing  England ;  and 
Chaucer,  as  anxious  as  his  contemporaries  to  make  acquaintance 
with  lance  and  arrow,  the  ancient,  and  gunpowder,  that  newly 
invented  means  of  murder,  commenced  his  quest  for  "  the  bub- 
ble reputation,"  —  not,  as  might  have  been  expected,  in  the 
realms  of  the  Muses,  but  in  the  realm  of  France.  The  year  1359 
found  him  soldiering  there,  and  late  in  that  same  year  he  was 

taken  prisoner,  to  be  ransomed  next  spring  for  the  sum  of  £20. 

247 


248  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

We  then  lose  sight  of  him  for  a  considerable  period,  and  when 
he  once  more  comes  forth  into  the  light  of  history  it  is  to  marry 
a  lady  of  the  chamber  to  the  queen,  Philippa  by  name,  and  sister 
to  the  wife  of  that  famous  John  of  Gaunt  who,  though  himself 
no  king,  was,  like  Banquo,  the  ancestor  of  kings.  Duke  John 
ranked  thenceforth  as  the  patron  and  protector  of  Chaucer,  and 
with  his  aid  the  poet  climbed  sturdily  up  the  ladder  of  life,  though 
meeting  now  and  then  with  awkward  falls.  He  was  included  in 
a  kind  of  commercial  embassy  that  visited  Italy,  obtained  more 
than  one  pension,  and  in  1377  went  on  a  secret  mission  to  France 
to  seek  the  hand  of  a  French  princess  for  that  Prince  of  Wales 
who,  as  Richard  II.,  was  destined  to  deposition  and  a  tragic 
death. 

The  year  1386  saw  Chaucer  returned  to  Parliament  as  one  of 
the  knights  of  the  shire  for  the  county  of  Kent.  At  this  period 
the  sun  of  prosperity  shone  most  graciously  upon  him.  He 
enjoyed  several  pensions,  and,  more  fortunate  in  the  fourteenth 
century  than  Burns  in  the  eighteenth,  was  permitted  to  discharge 
by  deputy  the  excise  business  appertaining  to  his  appointment 
of  Comptroller  of  Customs.  All  at  once  good  fortune  abandoned 
him.  John  of  Gaunt,  "  time-honored  Lancaster,"  was  tripped 
up  in  the  race  of  ambition  by  the  Duke  of  Gloucester,  and  in  his 
fall  Chaucer  fell  also.  Pensions  and  places  took  to  themselves 
wings ;  and  to  fill  up  the  measure  of  the  poet's  afflictions,  his  wife 
died  at  this  time,  and  he  was  left  alone  and  poor  to  endure  the 
buffets  of  Fortune.  The  return  of  the  Lancastrian  party  to  power 
brought  back  a  few  gleams  of  his  former  prosperity,  but  for  several 
years  his  purse  was  oftener  empty  than  full.  In  a  poem  addressed 
to  it  he  complains  grievously  of  its  lightness,  and  describes  him- 
self as  threatened  with  absolute  want.  John  of  Gaunt,  oppressed 
with  age  and  sorrows,  had  at  length  taken  refuge  in  death  from 
the  tyranny  and  ingratitude  of  kings;  but  in  1399  the  usurpa- 
tion of  the  throne  by  his  son,  Henry  Bolingbroke,  put  a  period  to 
the  distresses  of  Chaucer.  His  empty  exchequer  replenished 
with  fresh  pensions,  the  poet  set  about  providing  a  retreat  for  his 
old  age,  and  leased  a  tenement  in  the  garden  of  St.  Mary's  Chapel, 
Westminster,  for  the  long  term  of  fifty-three  years.  Death  did 


GEOFFREY   CHAUCER.  249 

not  permit  him  to  inhabit  it  a  single  twelvemonth.  It  was  in 
December,  1399,  that  Geoffrey  Chaucer  covenanted  for  this 
lease,  and  one  of  the  last  days  of  the  following  October  beheld 
a  grave  opened  in  the  Abbey  of  Westminster,  while  monkish 
voices  implored  repose  for  the  soul  of  the  first  poet  whose 
bones  were  laid  to  rest  in  a  shrine  now  so  well  stored  with 
the  dust  of  literary  monarchs. 

In  standing  by  the  grave  of  Chaucer,  it  is  impossible  to  think 
of  the  lips  that  centuries  ago  mouldered  into  dust  beneath  those 
stones  as  having,  in  the  fashion  of  so  many  modern  poets,  sighed 
forth  with  the  last  breath  left  to  them  a  petition  for  eternal  sleep. 
Some  thirty  centuries  since,  an  Idumean  patriarch,  in  a  poetical 
lamentation  of  the  utmost  sacredness  and  sublimity,  cursed  the 
day  wherein  he  was  born ;  and  crying  to  his  Maker,  "  Oh,  that 
thou  wouldest  hide  me  in  the  grave !  "  spoke  of  that  dark  and 
silent  refuge  as  made  delightful  to  him  by  the  thought  that 
"  there  the  wicked  cease  from  troubling,  and  there  the  weary  are 
at  rest."  For  nearly  a  hundred  years  past,  English  poetry  has 
taken  to  itself  something  of  the  melancholy  of  Job. 

"  The  fear  that  kills, 
And  hope  that  is  unwilling  to  be  fed," 

are  the  portion  of  our  nineteenth-century  singers  ;  and  the  harp 
of  each  is  little  better  than  a  single-stringed  lyre  that,  when 
struck,  sends  forth  the  unchanging  complaint,  "  Vanitas  vani- 
tatum."  The  sweetest  songs  of  the  present  generation  speak 
very  sadly  of  life  and  of  the  age  that  gave  them  birth. 

Far  otherwise  was  it  with  the  genius  of  Chaucer.  Perfect 
health,  both  of  mind  and  body,  seems  to  have  been  the  happy 
gift  that  Fortune  from  his  youth  bestowed  upon  him.  The  pains 
of  life,  although  he  reaped  that  plentiful  harvest  of  them  which 
from  time  immemorial  has  been  looked  upon  as  a  kind  of  poetic 
right  divine,  were  endured  by  him  without  any  expression, 
whether  in  rhyme  or  blank  verse,  of  a  desire  to  take  refuge  in 
the  grave ;  and  he  enjoyed  in  the  heartiest  fashion  such  sea- 
sons of  prosperity  as  his  changeful  career  allotted  to  him.  He 
was  the  most  catholic-spirited  of  geniuses,  a  lover  both  of  the 


OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

country  and  of  the  town,  and  by  turns  soldier,  scholar,  and  man 
of  business.  No  poet  ever  dwelt  more  fondly  on  the  charm  of 
a  summer  morning  as  exhibited  in  field  and  wood,  yet  no  Lon- 
doner had  a  keener  appreciation  of  town  comforts  or  more  relish 
for  the  pleasures  of  society.  When  the  festival  of  May-day 
turned  half  England  into  the  greenwood  to  imitate  for  a  day  the 
forest  life  of  Robin  Hood  and  Marian,  Chaucer  took  holiday  with 
the  rest,  and  flinging  aside  his  manuscripts  would  escape  into 
the  company  of  tree  and  flower,  to  be  saluted  with  the  blithe 
welcome  of  the  lark,  and  to  describe,  with  the  glee  of  a  poet 
who  had  left  his  bed  before  the  sun,  how 

"  Fiery  Phoebus  riseth  up  so  bright 
That  all  the  Orient  laugheth  at  the  sight." 

When  winter  had  made  an  out-of-door  life  cheerless,  Chaucer 
abandoned  it,  and  turned  with  equal  contentment  to  fireside 
jest  and  Christmas  revel.  The  most  sociable  of  mankind,  he 
loved  dearly  to  see  his  own  good  nature  reflected  in  the  faces 
of  others ;  and  the  feelings  with  which  he  regarded  the  grave 
are  admirably  expressed  in  his  complaint  that  there  a  man  must 

keep  house 

"  Alone  —  withouten  any  compagnie." 

In  the  case  of  Chaucer  himself  this  lament  has  proved  un- 
founded. The  company  of  authors  that  have  joined  him  in 
Westminster  Abbey  are  almost  as  many  as  the  old  building  can 
contain.  He  lies  there, — a  king  surrounded  by  his  court. 
Bearing  in  mind  that  neither  Shakspeare,  Milton,  nor  the  great- 
est of  more  modern  geniuses  has  a  grave  in  this  national  ceme- 
tery, it  must  be  pronounced  that  there  is  not  among  the  dead 
of  Westminster  a  poet  worthy  to  rank  as  the  equal  of  him  who, 
aided  by  no  other  magic  than  that  of  mind,  half  created  the 
English  language.  Before  the  time  of  Chaucer  .that  noble 
language,  now  the  fitting  drapery  of  conceptions  bright  as  the 
Shining  Ones  of  Bunyan,  was  little  better  than  the  chaotic  wreck 
of  Anglo-Saxon  forms  of  speech,  —  a  barbarous  jargon,  despised 
of  grammarians  and  rejected  by  the  learned  and  the  nobly  born. 
Chaucer  took  in  hand  this  rude  dialect,  the  speech  of  peasant 


C*  GEORGE     BUCHANAN0! 


GEORGE    BUCHANAN. 


GEORGE   BUCHANAN.  253 

and  yeoman,  and  from  the  day  when  he  had  succeeded  in  prov- 
ing that  it  might  be  "  married  to  immortal  verse, "  the  attention 
of  the  educated  few  was  directed  no  longer  to  its  uncouth  rug- 
gedness  but  to  its  inborn  energy  and  majesty.  His  "  well  of 
English  undefiled,"  as  Spenser  nobly  termed  it,  is  the  source 
from  which  has  issued  the  river  of  our  literature,  —  that  ma- 
jestic current  which  has  not  yet  ceased  to  widen  as  it  rolls 
onward  towards  the  ocean  of  Eternity. 


GEORGE    BUCHANAN. 

[BORN  1506     DIED  1582  ] 

TN  writing  the  lives  of  remarkable  men.  a  question  of  no  little 
-  importance  arises  at  the  very  threshold :  What  constitutes 
success  in  life?  For  it  is  the  successful  man  who  is  held  up  to 
an  admiring  world  as  the  pattern  for  all  the  rest.  Several  biog- 
raphies of  recent  date,  written  more  especially  for  the  young, 
seem  to  assume  that  a  faculty  for  making  money  is  the  meaning 
of  success.  And  there  is  a  common  observation  in  ordinary 
life  which  exactly  tallies  with  this  assumption.  It  is  said  of  the 
man  who  has  failed  in  acquiring  wealth,  that  he  is  an  unsuccess- 
ful man,  or  that  he  is  a  failure.  But  such  a  conclusion  is  clearly 
illogical;  for  a  man,  though  the  poorest  of  the  poor.,  may  still 
be  a  successful  man  as  regards  something  else  which  is  not 
money.  He  is  successful  if  he  attain  the  object  of  his  best 
efforts,  no  matter  what  the  object  may  be.  To  be  truly  suc- 
cessful, what  a  man  gains ^by  his  best  efforts  must  be  worth  the 
gaining,  —  must  make  him  really  better  by  its  acquisition,  and 
must  leave  him  capable  of  its  enjoyment  after  it  is  acquired. 
And  this  is  true  not  only  of  money  but  of  all  other  objects  of 
pursuit.  So  that,  in  fact,  the  world  has  produced  very  few  that 
can  be  called  thoroughly  successful  men.  Some  of  the  noblest 
of  mankind  have  been  exceedingly  poor;  for  the  unworldly- 


254  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

minded  neglect  the  means  of  money-making,  or  cannot  com- 
prehend its  rules.  Money-making  is  an  art  or  handicraft  in 
which  the  apprentice  must  work  patiently  and  laboriously,  as  in 
other  arts,  before  he  can  become  proficient.  The  millionnaire  is 
the  profound  and  accomplished  artist  in  money.  His  success  is 
the  measure  of  the  application  of  those  rules  and  maxims  which 
constitute  the  method  of  his  art.  In  relating  the  memoirs  of  the 
men  who  come  within  the  category  of  the  world's  benefactors, 
the  instances  of  the  millionnaire  are  rather  exceptional  than 
otherwise.  And  when  they  come  within  the  list,  they  come 
not  on  the  merit  of  their  wealth,  but  of  their  excellent  bestowal 
of  it.  The  benefactors  are  the  dispensers,  not  the  acquirers,  — 
the  men  who  add  to  the  world's  benefit,  whether  they  increase 
their  own  or  not.  The  illustrious  scholar  and  poet  whose  career 
has  suggested  these  reflections,  which  might  however  have 
arisen  just  as  naturally  out  of  the  career  of  any  truly  unselfish 
worker  for  the  world's  good,  is  an  instance  of  the  capability  of 
a  man  to  be  a  true  benefactor  to  others,  and  yet  himself  be 
frequently  in  want  of  the  common  necessaries  of  life. 

George  Buchanan,  the  greatest  of  modern  Latinists,  and  the 
uncompromising  denouncer  of  the  political  and  religious  errors 
of  his  own  time,  was  born  in  1 506,  at  Killearne,  in  Stirlingshire, 
Scotland,  in  great  poverty.  At  the  time  of  his  birth  his  mother 
was  a  widow,  with  eight  other  children.  She  must  therefore 
have  been  somewhat  in  the  position  of  the  worried  old  lady  in 
the  fairy  tale,  and  the  children  were  probably  not  unaccustomed 
to  the  same  homely  fare  of  whippings  and  broth,  for  those  were 
the  days  of  sound  whippings,  both  in  school  and  at  home.  It 
seems  that  an  uncle  took  notice  of  George  at  an  early  age,  be- 
cause of  the  lad's  abilities.  At  fourteen  he  was  sent  to  Paris, 
then  the  most  noted  university  in  Europe,  to  continue  and  com- 
plete his  education.  Here  he  continued  for  two  years,  at  the 
end  of  which  time  his  uncle  died,  and  he  had  to  return  home. 
Being  without  resources,  he  enlisted  as  a  soldier  in  the  Duke  of 
Albany's  French  troop,  but  his  health  broke  down  tinder  the 
severe  strain  and  fatigue  of  this  harassing  service,  and  he  once 
more  found  means  to  reach  Paris  and  resume  his  studies,  And 


GEORGE   BUCHANAN.  255 

now  for  several  years  he  struggled  hard  against  poverty  and 
misery.  At  length  we  find  him  engaged,  after  taking  his  Mas- 
ter's degree,  as  private  tutor  to  the  young  Earl  of  Cassilis,  with 
whom  he  went  back  to  Scotland,  and  from  whose  service  he  was 
very  shortly  transferred  to  that  of  the  King  himself.  James  V. 
made  him  preceptor  to  his  natural  son,  the  Earl  of  Murray,  and 
in  this  capacity  Buchanan  commenced  a  friendship  with  the 
chivalrous  young  prince  which  lasted  until  Murray's  untimely 
death.  His  roving  disposition,  however,  led  him  to  other  scenes. 
Deeply  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the  Reformed  Faith,  which 
was  then  struggling  to  obtain  acceptance  in  France,  he  struck 
upon  the  idea  of  attacking  the  monastic  orders,  and  particularly 
the  Franciscans,  with  whom  in  Paris  he  had  come  frequently 
into  collision.  This  he  did  in  a  poem  called  the  "  Somnium." 
The  King,  who  had  as  great  an  aversion  to  the  Cordeliers  as 
Buchanan  himself,  urged  a  renewed  attack,  and  the  poet  was 
not  loath  to  repeat  his  flagellation.  The  new  poem,  called  "  Fran- 
ciscanus,"  unfortunately  for  its  too  witty  author,  became  exceed- 
ingly popular.  It  was  translated  into  French  as  "  Le  Cordelier 
de  Buchanan,"  and  was  often  reprinted.1  This  terrible  mona- 
chomastix  brought  down  on  Buchanan  all  the  monastic  orders  of 
Christendom.  So  violent  was  the  storm,  that  even  the  King 
could  not  shelter  the  poet  from  its  fury.  The  monks  got  hold 
of  his  person,  and  with  very  little  attempt  at  the  formality  of  a 
trial  secured  him,  as  they  thought,  tightly  in  prison.  But  some- 
how or  other  he  escaped  and  fled  to  London.  London  speedily 
in  turn  became  too  hot  for  him,  for  Henry  VIII.  burned  both 
Papists  and  Lutherans,  according  to  his  mood.  The  Reforma- 
tion method  of  the  "  Defender  of  the  Faith,"  though  unique  and 
conclusive,  did  not  suit  Buchanan,  so  he  passed  over  once  more 
to  Paris  ;  and  "  out  of  the  frying-pan  into  the  fire,"  according  to 
a  vulgar  proverb  much  more  understandable  in  those  days  than 
in  the  present,  for  there  he  came  across  Cardinal  Beatoun,  one 
of  his  most  implacable  enemies.  The  horrible  fate  of  poor 
Helen  Stark  and  the  Perth  tradesmen  was  proof  of  Beatoun's 
capabilities  as  an  inquisitor.  Again  he  passed  on;  this  time  to 
1  The  first  edition  is  that  of  Sedan,  1599,  8vo. 


256  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Bordeaux.  In  Bordeaux  we  find  him  spoken  of  as  the  second 
regent  of  the  College  de  Bourbon,  his  two  colleagues  being 
the  famous  Antony  Muretus  as  first,  and  Adrian  Turnebus  as 
third.  These  three  famous  Latinists  are  placed  side  by  side 
by  Montaigne  as  the  greatest  poets  of  the  time.  With  Beza 
and  L'Hopital  they  claim  a  front  rank  in  scholarship,  but 
more  especially  in  versification.  Posterity,  however,  has  per- 
mitted' Buchanan  to  distance  all  his  gifted  competitors.  He  is 
now  universally  allowed  to  be  facile  princeps  of  modern  Latin 
poets,  both  for  the  purity  of  his  style  and  the  harmony  of  his 
versification. 

The  next  scene  in  his  eventful  life  is  laid  in  Portugal,  at 
Coimbra,  three  or  four  years  later.  Once  more  coming  to 
grief  through  the  monks,  who  confined  him  in  a  monastery, 
he  solaced  himself  with  composing  his  beautiful  Latin  para- 
phrase of  the  Psalms.  On  his  release  he  returned  to  England. 
The  next  few  years  he  spent  between  France  and  Scotland,  part 
of  the  time  as  tutor  to  the  son  of  the  Marshal  de  Brissac.  In 
1560  he  publicly  professed  the  Reformed  religion,  and  was  made 
principal  of  the  College  of  St.  Leonard.  With  his  active  and 
restless  disposition  he  could  not  remain  quietly  as  a  mere  col- 
lege professor.  He  threw  himself  vigorously  into  the  political 
movements  of  the  time ;  and  in  the  troubles  then  agitating  his 
native  Scotland  he  sided  hotly  with  the  enemies  of  the  Queen. 
This  must  have  been  from  religious  conviction ;  for  Mary  had 
shown  him  very  decided  marks  of  her  favor,  even  suggesting 
the  appointment  of  tutor  to  her  son.  In  1570  Murray,  to  whom 
he  was  greatly  attached,  was  assassinated,  and  Buchanan  gave  up 
his  principalship  to  receive  from  the  Government  the  appoint- 
ment of  tutor  to  James  VI.  Many  are  the  stories  told  of  this 
portion  of  his  life.  Among  others,  it  is  said  that,  in  consider- 
ation of  the  young  prince's  rank,  and  in  tender  regard  for  the 
royal  person,  a  lad  of  his  own  age  was  appointed,  at  a  fixed 
salary,  to  receive  all  the  whippings  he  incurred  as  a  school-boy. 
And  the  stern  preceptor  insisted  on  their  being  rigidly  enforced 
in  the  presence  of  James,  to  impress  his  mind  with  the  serious- 
ness of  his  misdeeds.  If  the  proxy  at  times  howled  to  order,  no 


GEORGE    BUCHANAN.  257 

doubt  he  got  plenty  to  howl  for,  as  there  was  very  little  make- 
believe  about  Buchanan. 

From  Queen  Elizabeth  our  hard-working  Reformer  received 
a  pension  of  £100,  which  was  a  good  help  towards  the  History 
of  Scotland  he  was  then  engaged  upon.  This  valuable  work, 
"  Rerum  Scotiarum  Historia,"  apart  from  its  facts,  is  a  pattern 
of  style.  Of  course,  as  a  modern  Latinist,  the  writer  is  by  no 
means  a  second  Livy ;  but  he  made  Livy  his  model,  and  thus 
not  only  rendered  his  history  readable,  but  placed  it  in  the  front 
rank  of  books  of  its  class. 

He  also  wrote  a  pamphlet  against  Mary,  translated  and  pub- 
lished at  Edinburgh,  and  called  "  A  Detection  of  the  Doings  of 
Mary,"  etc.  This  was  his  latest  work,  for  in  September  of  the 
year  in  which  it  was  published  he  died.  His  last  request  was  to 
his  servant  to  know  how  much  money  was  left  in  the  house,  and 
on  learning  that  it  was  not  sufficient  to  bury  him,  he  ordered  it 
to  be  given  to  the  poor.  The  people  of  Edinburgh  honored  his 
remains  with  a  public  funeral  as  a  benefactor  to  his  country. 

Various  opinions  have  been  given  of  Buchanan's  public  char- 
acter, according  to  the  interpretations  put  upon  his  conduct  to 
Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  who  undoubtedly  had  been  his  benefac- 
tress ;  but  his  poverty  seems  a  sufficient  answer  to  those  who 
say  that  his  denunciations  were  uttered  for  pay  from  England, 
and  that  Elizabeth's  pension  would  account  for  his  ingratitude 
to  Mary.  Besides,  he  was  not  a  man  to  do  things  by  halves,  — 
he  was  not  mealy-mouthed  in  expressing  his  opinions,  and  he 
held  opinions  opposed  to  monasticism,  and,  in  short,  to  Roman- 
ism, at  the  very  time  that  Mary  sought  to  confer  favors  upon 
him.  It  might  be  said,  therefore,  that  it  was  rather  Mary  who 
wished  to  bribe  him  to  reconciliation  with  her  policy,  or  at  least 
to  keep  him  silent  respecting  it.  However  that  may  be,  he  did 
good  and  substantial  service  to  the  Faith  of  Scotland,  not  only 
by  his  partisanship  but  with  his  pen.  Both  the  "  History"  and 
the  "Paraphrase"  remain  monuments  of  his  genius  and  learning, 
and  lasting  ornaments  to  the  literature  of  his  country. 


2$8  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 


WILLIAM   SHAKSPEARE. 

[BORN  1564.     DIED  1616.] 

r  I  ""HE  three  hundred  and  fifteenth  anniversary  of  the  birth 
-*•  of  Shakspeare  was  celebrated  at  Stratford-on-Avon  on 
Wednesday  the  23d  of  April,  1879,  by  the  opening  of  a  new 
Memorial  Theatre,  and  on  the  three  following  days  by  a  series 
of  dramatic  and  musical  performances  given  therein. 

This  new  Memorial  Theatre,  a  compact,  picturesque  little 
building,  excellently  adapted  to  the  occasional  purposes  for 
which  it  is  intended,  is  the  result  of  one  of  those  movements, 
national  in  their  representative  character  but  straitly  limited  as 
to  the  number  taking  part  in  them,  which  have  been  set  on  foot 
from  time  to  time  by  select  sections  among  the  poet's  countless 
admirers  who  have  not  cared  to.  abide  under  the  censure  which 
he  has  himself  pronounced  upon 

"  Those  rich-left  heirs  that  let  their  fathers  lie 
Without  a  monument." 

One  of  these  movements  led  some  years  ago  to  the  purchase  of 
the  house  in  Henley  Street  in  which  Shakspeare  is  supposed  to 
have  been  born,  together  with  that  next  it  and  the  garden  ground 
attached  to  both.  Another  led  to  the  restoration  of  the  build- 
ings, the  formation  of  a  museum  of  Shakspeare  relics  in  their 
principal  rooms,  and  the  planting  of  the  garden  with  the  local 
flowers,  shrubs,  and  herbs  mentioned  in  the  poet's  works.  Later 
on,  about  the  period  of  the  great  tercentenary  celebration  in 
1864,  New  Place,  the  residence  in  which  Shakspeare  passed 
the  last  few  years  of  his  life,  was  purchased  and  restored.  And 
now  we  have  this  new  theatre,  which  it  is  hoped  may  have 
the  effect  of  adding  yet  more  to  the  memorials  of  the  poet  in 
his  native  town  by  attracting  thither  in  future  larger  numbers 


WILLIAM     SHAKSPEARE. 


WILLIAM   SHAKSPEARE.  261 

of  visitors  on  the  occasion  of  the  annual  celebrations  of  his 
birthday. 

There  can  be  no  more  fitting  place  for  memorials  of  Shak- 
speare  than  the  quaint  old  town  nestling  in  the  heart  of  rural 
Warwickshire  which  gave  him  birth.  It  was  there  that  he  grew 
up  from  youth  to  manhood  in  the  midst  of  nature's  handiwork, 
finding  "  tongues  in.  trees,  books  in  the  running  brooks,  ser- 
mons in  stones,  and  good  in  everything;  "  and,  as  we  may  see 
by  letting  his  works  fall  open  at  random  anywhere,  these  early 
associations  never  left  him.  Wherever  he  may  have  been  or 
whatever  his  occupation,  his  fancy  wandered  back  to  the  scenes 
of  his  youth,  —  to  "  the  banks  with  peonied  and  twilled  brims," 
the  "  daffodils  that  come  before  the  summer  dares  and  take  the 
winds  of  March  with  beauty,"  the  "  violets  dim  but  sweeter 
than  the  lids  of  Juno's  eyes  or  Cytherea's  breath,"  the  "  prim- 
roses that  die  unmarried  before  they  can  behold  bright  Phoebus 
in  his  strength,"  the  "throstle  with  his  note  so  true,"  the  "white 
sheet  bleaching  on  the  hedge,"  the  "  rich  leas  and  corn-fields," 
the  •"  brimming  river,"  and  the  "  thick-pleached  alleys  in  the 
orchards  "  of  his  native  Stratford. 

In  the  genial  spring  and  soft  summer-time,  indeed,  the  whole 
country  round  about  is  redolent  of  Shakspeare.  There  you 
may  still  find  the  bank  "  whereon  the  wild  thyme  grows,"  and 
drink  in  the  "  sweet  south  as  it  breathes  upon  a  bank  of  violets, 
stealing  and  giving  odors."  Harebells,  kingcups,  and  pansies 
peep  out  from  the  greensward  in  many  a  cunning  nook,  where 
the  loveliest  of  drooping  foliage  forms  a  natural  arcade  at  the 
far  end  of  whose  dim  vista  the  comely  Oberon  might  well  recline. 
There  are  the  trees  whereon  the  love-stricken  Orlando  hung  his 
song-scrolls,  and  there  the  grove  where  the  Duke  and  his  "  co- 
mates  in  exile  "  partook  of  their  frugal  banquet  and  sang  their 
sylvan  songs ;  while  far  away  beneath  the  antique  oaks  one  can 
still  faintly  discern  on  the  confines  of  the  wood  the  cottage 
embowered  in  olives  where  Rosalind  and  Celia  dwelt.  Friar 
Lawrence  may  still  cull  his  simples  in  the  early  dawn,  while 
Proserpine  lets  fall  spring  flowers  from  Dis's  wagon,  and  Ceres 
scatters  her  corn-seed  over  the  fruitful  land. 


,762  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Rich,  however,  as  Stratford  is  in  reminiscences  of  the  poet,  it 
is  not  there  alone  that  we  must  seek  for  the  influences  which 
served  to  form  his  mind  and  direct  the  course  of  his  work. 
Shakspeare  was  in  reality  the  product  of  an  age  of  transi- 
tion and  development,  —  the  outcome  and  complement  of  one 
of  those  rare  epochs  which  mark  a  new  departure  in  the  prog- 
ress of  the  race.  Born  in  the  midst  of  great  deeds,  he  was  led 
in,  accompanied,  and  followed  out  by  a  procession  of  great 
men.  All  the  old  bases  of  European  thought  and  action  were 
being  broken  up.  Printing  had  rendered  knowledge  common 
property ;  gunpowder  had  displaced  personal  valor  as  the  final 
arbitrator  among  mankind ;  astrology  and  alchemy  were  dis- 
appearing in  the  crucible  of  scientific  research ;  necromancy  and 
witchcraft  were  flitting  away  before  the  dawn  of  enlightenment ; 
superstition  was  reluctantly  yielding  to  reason  her  long  empire 
over  the  human  mind ;  everywhere  men  were  shaking  off  the 
spell  wrought  upon  them  by  priestcraft,  and,  no  longer  dazzled 
by  the  chivalric  splendors  of  the  feudal  system,  were  struggling 
for  freedom, of  conscience  and  intellectual  and  political  liberty. 

The  great  Reformation  was  already  an  accomplished  fact. 
With  a  mighty  torch  lighted  at  the  flame  which  had  consumed 
the  bones  of  Wickliffe  and  the  living  body  of  John  Huss,  Luther 
had  illuminated  all  Germany;  and,  catching  something  of  the 
glare  by  reflection,  Zwingli  and  Petri  and  Taussen  had  pro- 
jected it  into  the  darkest  corners  of  Switzerland  on  the  one 
hand  and  the  Scandinavian  kingdoms  on  the  other.  Calvin 
had  brought  new  breath  to  the  blaze,  which,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  Melancthon  and  Erasmus,  had  become  almost  univer- 
sal ;  and,  quitting  the  world  in  the  same  year  that  Shakspeare 
entered  it,  had  left  his  unfinished  work  to  Beza  in  France  and 
Knox  in  Scotland.  It  was  in  vain  that  Rome  furbished  up 
her  old  weapons  and  forged  new  ones  to  aid  her  in  the  battle 
against  enlightenment,  —  in  vain  that  she  instituted  the  Order  of 
Jesus,  reorganized  the  Inquisition,  and  set  up  the  Index  Expur- 
gatorius.  The  papal  splendor  had  culminated  in  the  pontificate 
of  Leo  X.,  and  was  now  on  the  wane.  Men,  indeed,  had  begun 
to  perceive  that  freedom  of  thought  was  the  parent  of  enter- 


WILLIAM   SHAKSPEARE.  263 

prise,  and  enterprise  the  parent  of  all  high  achievement;  and 
with  the  dawning  of  this  knowledge  upon  the  human  mind  the 
glory  of  Rome  had  departed. 

In  Italy  Tasso  was  singing  the  requiem  of  a  royal  line  of  poets 
which  ran  back  through  Ariosto,  Dante,  and  Petrarch  to  the 
classic  ages.  Art,  in  its  passage  from  the  childhood  of  imita- 
tion into  the  manhood  of  creative  power,  had  been  stricken  down 
by  the  Church  to  whose  service  it  had  been  mainly  devoted. 
Leonardo  da  Vinci  was  no  more ;  Raphael  was  no  more ;  death 
robbed  the  world  of  Michael  Angelo  a  few  weeks  after  Shak- 
speare  had  been  born  into  it;  Titian,  an  old  man  now,  was 
resting  on  his  laurels ;  Tintoretto,  in  his  zenith,  was  bettering 
the  instructions  of  his  great  master;  Correggio  had  sunk  into 
death  beneath  his  money  bags ;  the  Caracci  were  still  at  their 
primers. 

Spain,  which  had  attained  her  highest  point  of  greatness 
under  Charles  V.,  was  now  shrinking  beneath  the  iron  grasp 
of  his  son  and  successor,  Philip  II.,  already  the  widower  of 
one  English  queen  and  now  suitor  for  the  hand  of  another. 
The  New  World,  which  in  the  name  of  Spain  Columbus  had 
discovered,  Cortes  had  conquered,  and  Las  Casas  was  trying  to 
win,  was  slipping  from  her  grasp.  Her  dominion  in  the  West 
was  passing  over  to  England,  together  with  her  supremacy  on 
the  seas.  Portugal,  by  a  bloodless  revolution,  had  re-established 
her  independence.  The  Netherlands  were  being  purified  for 
freedom  in  the  fiery  persecutions  of  Alva.  Spanish  literature, 
at  that  time  perhaps  the  richest  in  Europe,  was  destined  to 
produce  but  two  more  great  names  and  then  die  out.  The  one 
was  Cervantes,  the  author  of  "  Don  Quixote,"  as  yet  a  youth  of 
seventeen  ;  the  other,  Lope  de  Vega,  as  yet  in  swaddling  clothes. 
Camoens,  the  sweetest  of  all  singers  in  Portuguese,  was  writing 
his  "  Lusiad  "  in  the  Indies. 

France  had  already  produced  some  great  men,  and  was  hold- 
ing still  greater  in  embryo.  Francis  II.  was  just  dead.  His 
young  and  fascinating  widow,  Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  was  in- 
triguing for  Holy  Church  and  another  husband.  Catherine  de 
Medicis  ruled  France  in  the  name  of  Charles  IX.,  with  the  assist- 


264  OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

ance  of  L'Hopital,  the  Chancellor,  and  Montmorency,  the  Con- 
stable, —  both  great  men  embarrassed  by  office.  The  brothers 
Guise  were  riding  through  the  land  with  havoc  in  their  train,  to 
familiarize  men's  minds  with  the  untold  horrors  which  were  after- 
wards to  find  their  culmination  in  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholo- 
mew. Brave  old  Gaspard  de  Coligni  and  the  valiant  Conde 
were  training  the  Huguenots  in  many  a  bloody  fight  for  that 
great  day  when  Henri  de  Navarre  and  the  Due  de  Sully,  both 
children  now,  should  lead  them  on  to  victory  at  Ivry.  Rabelais, 
after  laughing  away  his  full  measure  of  threescore  and  ten  years, 
had  quitted  life  with  an  impious  jest.  Montaigne,  in  his  merid- 
ian, was  indolently  blooming  into  fame.  Marot,  Saint-Gelais,  and 
Ronsard  had  already  let  fall  the  first  gentle  droppings  of  French 
poetry ;  and  Malherbe,  the  Chaucer  of  France,  had  been  born  at 
Caen  nine  years  before  Shakspeare  saw  the  light  at  Stratford. 
Before  he  died  Descartes  had  come  into  the  world ;  and  Roche- 
foucauld, Corneille,  La  Fontaine,  Boileau,  Moliere,  Racine,  Fene- 
lon,  Pascal,  Malebranche,  and  Montesquieu  had  followed  him. 

England  had  finally  beaten  off  Rome,  and  taken  her  destinies 
into  her  own  hands.  Mary  was  dead,  and  Elizabeth  had  already  v 
reigned  six  years.  The  elder  Cecil,  wise,  acute,  far-seeing,  had 
command  of  the  helm;  the  state  bark  was  manned  by  men  of 
like  mettle.  In  spite  of  the  perilous  vagaries  of  the  love-smitten 
Queen,  the  nation  was  rising  rapidly  into  power.  Armed  to  the 
teeth,  it  was  defying  Spain  and  intimidating  France.  The  foun- 
dations of  its  naval  greatness  were  being  laid.  Hawkins  was 
training  Drake  upon  the  Spanish  main ;  the  sea-dogs  of  the 
West  were  being  let  loose  upon  the  ocean.  Unheard-of  enter- 
prises lay  seething  in  the  brain  of  the  adventurous  Raleigh,  then 
a  boy  at  school.  The  great  middle  class  was  just  emerging 
into  life  to  strengthen  alike  the  thews  and  the  mind  of  the  nation, 
and  thought  was  broadening  throughout  the  land.  Bacon,  the 
father  of  experimental  philosophy,  was  just  out  of  the  leading- 
strings  of  infancy.  Sackville,  afterwards  Lord  Buck,hurst  and 
Dorset,  was  writing  the  first  lines  of  the  "  Mirror  for  Magis- 
trates." John  Lyly,  whose  "  Euphues  "  was  destined  to  people 
society  with  a  race  of  fops  of  the  Don  Adriano  stamp,  was  as 


WILLIAM  SHAKSPEARE.  265 

yet  a  boy  of  ten  or  eleven  summers.  Spenser  and  Sir  Philip 
Sidney  were  still  at  school ;  and  a  host  of  minor  poets  and 
dramatists,  whose  lustre  has  been  dimmed  by  the  great  shadow 
of  Shakspeare,  were  yet  in  their  cradles. 

There  were  few  books  then.  There  were  no  newspapers. 
The  stage,  the  only  secular  public  teacher  of  the  time,  —  the 
one  source  whence  the  masses  drew  their  knowledge  of  history, 
their  opinions  on  passing  events,  their  ideas  of  society  and 
morals,  their  canons  of  criticism,  their  principles  of  taste, 
and  their  politics, — was  just  being  brought  out  of  chaos  into 
order.  Udall's  "  Ralph  Roister  Doister,"  John  Heywood's  in- 
terludes and  "  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle,"  had  paved  the  way 
for  true  comedy.  Bayle's  "  King  John  "  and  Sackville  and  Nor- 
ton's "  Gorboduc  "  had  paved  the  way  for  true  tragedy.  All 
had  done  good  service  by  driving  out  the  old  mystery  plays. 
Marlowe,  who  had  that  "  fine  madness  "  which,  as  his  contem- 
porary Drayton  says,  "  rightly  should  possess  a  poet's  mind," 
was  just  beginning  to  write.  Robert  Greene,  who,  though  few 
give  him  credit  for  it,  drew  the  first  tender  outlines  so  perfectly 
filled  in  by  Shakspeare  in  his  long  procession  of  women,  was  a 
child  of  four.  George  Peele  was  just  thinking  about  going  to 
Oxford.  Rare  Ben  Jonson  was  not  destined  to  see  the  light  for 
ten  years  to  come.  Quite  a  swarm  of  little  dramatists  were 
struggling  to  the  front,  to  abuse  the  greater  ones  and  then  die 
out  of  remembrance. 

Still  the  "  inexplicable  dumb  shows "  and  the  allegorical 
abstractions  of  the  old  Mysteries  clung  to  the  drama  with  a 
tenacity  with  which  none  but  a  Shakspeare  could  grapple. 
Young  as  it  was,  moreover,  the  nascent  institution  was  already 
growing  ribald  and  licentious.  "  Judas,  like  a  damned  soul,  in 
black  paynted  with  flames  of  fire  and  with  a  fearful  vizzard," 
continued  to  make  his  appearance  according  to  stage  direction. 
The  Lord  Mayor  of  London  had  found  it  necessary  to  order 
"  that  no  play  should  be  acted  within  the  liberty  of  the  City, 
wherein  should  be  any  words,  examples,  or  doings  of  any  un- 
chastity,  sedition,  or  suchlike  unfit  or  uncomely,  matter,"  under 
specified  penalties  of  fine  and  imprisonment. 


266  OUR  GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 

Of  players  there  was  as  yet  no  licensed  company.  The  Chil- 
dren of  the  Chapel  Royal  and  the  Children  of  the  Revels  were 
the  only  actors  who  performed  before  the  Court,  though  there 
were  many  strollers  like  those  in  "  Hamlet "  and  plenty  of  ama- 
teur companies,  who,  after  the  fashion  of  Bottom  and  his  histri- 
onic associates,  played  at  weddings  and  similar  entertainments. 
As  women  had  not  yet  made  their  appearance  upon  the  stage, 
all  feminine  characters  were  enacted  either  by  boys  or  young 
men.  Any  room,  building,  or  outhouse  served  for  a  theatre. 
The  scenery  and  other  accessories  of  the  drama  were  left  to  the 
spectators'  imagination.  The  same  stage  appointments  served 
through  all  the  acts,  and  the  only  indication  of  a  change  of  scene 
was  the  exhibition  of  a  board  inscribed  with  the  name  of  the 
place  supposed  to  be  represented. 

Such,  then,  was  Europe,  such  England,  and  such  the  English 
stage,  when  William  Shakspeare,  poet  and  dramatist,  first  saw 
the  light,  in  1564,  at  Stratford.  Such,  too,  were  some  of  the 
influences  which  helped  to  mould  his  mind,  —  some  only;  for 
the  flowers  and  the  foliage  reflected  in  the  Avon,  as  it  wound  its 
way  amongst  the  orchards  and  cornfields  of  his  birthplace,  had 
no  doubt  much  to  do  with  the  graceful  drapery  in  which  he 
was  wont  to  clothe  his  wisdom.  Born,  too,  in  one  of  the  oldest 
towns  in  the  country,  —  a  free  town,  whose  traditions  extended 
back  to  the  dim  days  of  the  Heptarchy,  whose  charter  dated 
from  the  splendid  reign  of  Edward  III.,  and  one  of  whose  citi- 
zens had  attained  the  dignity  of  an  archbishop  when  Rome 
was  paramount  in  England,  —  the  spirit  of  old  times  hovered 
over  him,  and  may  have  helped  to  preserve  him  from  the 
iconoclasm  of  an  age  given  to  idol-breaking. 

Of  his  parentage  we  know  little.  Of  himself,  of  his  journey 
through  life,  his  avocations,  his  haunts,  his  associates,  his  strug- 
gles, his  sorrows,  and  his  joys,  we  know  less.  The  exact  date 
of  his  birth  even  is  unknown,  though  it  is  certain  that  he  came 
among  us  with  the  spring  flowers,  and  was  ushered  into  the 
world,  so  to  speak,  by  the  music  of  the  returning  birds.  That 
he  spent  much  of  his  youth  in  the  dreamy  meadows  and 
woodlands  around  his  native  town,  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt. 


WILLIAM   SHAKSPEARE.  267 

Tradition  says  so,  and  his  works  confirm  it.  That  he  attended 
the  quaint  old  grammar-school,  and  there  obtained  a  smattering 
of  book  learning  which  to  a  mind  like  his  became  the  high-road 
to  something  like  scholarship,  is  equally  certain.  But  of  his 
youthful  avocations  after  he  had  left  school,  and  after  his  father, 
hitherto  the  prosperous  glover  and  wool-stapler,  elected  chief 
alderman,  and  honored  of  his  neighbors,  had  been  overtaken 
by  adversity,  we  know  nothing.  Tradition  sends  him  down  to 
us  a  glover,  a  wool-stapler,  a  butcher's  apprentice,  a  school- 
master, an  attorney's  clerk.  He  may  have  been  any  one  of 
these,  or  he  may  have  been  none.  It  is  even  open  to  doubt 
whether  his  parents  ever  occupied  the  house  to  which  tradi- 
tion points  as  his  birthplace,  while  the  singling  out  of  its  best 
bedroom  as  that  in  which  he  was  born  is  the  merest  matter  of 
inference.  Why  the  23d  of  April  has  been  fixed  upon  as  the 
day  of  his  birth  there  is  no  record  to  show.  He  was  baptized 
on  the  26th,  which  would  hardly  have  been  the  case  had  he 
been  born  but  three  days  before.  The  23d  being  the  day  of 
his  death  and  the  feast  of  England's  patron  saint  as  well,  may 
perhaps  account  for  the  invention  of  a  coincidence  which  in  all 
probability  did  not  exist  in  fact. 

Obscure,  however,  as  is  everything  relating  to  the  outer  life 
of  the  poet  during  these  early  years,  we  may  gather  something 
from  his  works  touching  the  activities  of  his  inner  life.  For  it 
was  then,  no  doubt,  that  he  was  conning  over  his  first  lessons  in 
the  wide-open  book  of  nature,  and  crowding  his  imagination 
with  imagery  drawn  from  the  scenery  around  him.  It  was  then 
that  he  fabled  the  cowslips  to  be  Titania's  pensioners  dressed 
out  in  their  speckled  coats  of  ruby  and  gold,  and  then  that 
he  discovered  the  dewdrops  to  be  pearls  hung  in  "  the  pretty 
flow'ret's  eyes  "  by  fairies  in  the  night-time.  It  was  then  that 
he  saw  the  elves  of  the  woodland  "cropping"  night  tapers 
from  the  waxen  thighs  of  honey-bees,  and  "  lighting  them  at  the 
fiery  glow-worm's  eyes ;  "  then  that  he  saw  the  moon  behold- 
ing her  "  silver  visage "  in  the  "  watery  glass,"  and  bathing 
every  blade  and  flower  in  "  liquid  pearl,"  —  the  whole  "  floor  of 
heaven,"  the  while,  being  "  thick  inlaid  with  patines  of  bright 


268  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

gold."  It  was  then,  too,  —  in  "winter's  tedious  nights,"  while 
"  the  wasted  brands  were  glowing,"  and  while  "  the  scritch-owl 
scritching  loud "  was  putting  him  in  mind  of  shrouds  and  of 
ghosts  gliding  from  the  churchyard,  —  that  he  drew  up  closer 
to  the  fire  with  "  good  old  folks,"  to  hear  their  tales  of  "  woful 
ages  long  ago  betid,"  and  to  garner  up  that  rich  store  of  folk- 
lore with  which  in  after  life  he  painted  in  the  shadows  of  his 
finest  pictures.  And  it  was  then,  no  doubt,  that  in  his  after 
dreams  he  saw  Queen  Mab  in  her  fairy  coach,  Puck  at  his  rev- 
els, and  the  ethereal  Titania  with  her  wondrous  little  serving- 
men  ministering  to  the  wants  of  "  translated  "  "  Bully  Bottom." 
It  was  a  happy  circumstance  that  Shakspeare  should  thus 
have  spent  that  portion  of  life  which  is  most  impressionable 
amongst  the  rural  scenes  of  Stratford,  not  alone  because  it  en- 
abled him  to  enrich  his  fancy  with  the  fairest  charms  of  nature, 
but  because  it  gave  him  the  means  of  teaching  a  deeper  love 
of  all  God's  works,  and  helped  to  develop  in  him  that  placid, 
world-wide  sympathy  with  all  conditions  of  men  and  living 
creatures  which  was  one  of  his  most  striking  characteristics. 
It  enabled  him  in  an  age  of  class  distinctions  far  more  sharply 
accentuated  than  our  own,  to  draw  even  the  despised  rustic  with 
a  kindly  hand.  And  when  the  notes  of  his  hunting-horns  are 
ringing  through  the  morning  air  most  cheerily,  and  the  "  music 
of  his  hounds  "  is  loudest,  he  charitably  drops  behind  either  to 
bestow  a  word  of  pity  upon  the  "  purblind  hare,"  who  "  outruns 
the  wind  to  overshoot  his  troubles,"  or  to  moralize  upon  the 
"  poor  sequestered  stag  that  came  to  languish."  He  upbraids 
"  that  most  ungentle  gull  the  cuckoo's  bird  "  for  the  unkindly  < 
way  in  which  it  "  useth  the  sparrow;"  and,  in  the  fervent  long-  \ 
ing  for  new-mown  hay  with  which  he  endows  Bottom  after  his 
transformation,  enters  into  the  humble  enjoyments  of  that  most 
patient  of  all  beasts  of  burden,  the  ass.  His  contact  with  Na- 
ture, indeed,  seems  to  have  impregnated  him  with  a  passionate 
love  of  all  her  works,  irrespective  of  their  outward  seemings. 
He  not  only  describes  them  with  affectionate  minuteness,  but 
handles  them  as  tenderly  as  if  they  were  some  delicate  creation 
of  his  own.  "  As  the  sun  breaks  through  the  darkest  clouds,"  he 


WILLIAM    SHAKSPEARE.  269 

says,  "  so  honor  peereth  in  the  meanest  habit."  "  What !  "  he 
asks  again,  "  is  the  jay  more  precious  than  the  lark  because 
his  feathers  are  more  beautiful?  or  is  the  adder  better  than  the 
eel  because  his  painted  skin  contents  the  eye?"  And  so  all 
through  his  life  we  find  him  singing  of  "  gilded  newts "  and 
"gray-coated  gnats,"  of  "  heavy-gaited  toads"  and  "spotted 
snakes,"  of  "  spinners'  legs  "  and  "  spiders'  webs,"  of  crickets, 
crows,  wrens,  and  finches,  as  lovingly  as  he  sings  of  the  most 
beautiful  of  God's  creatures.  He  knows  no  prejudice  in  favor 
of  the  one  or  the  other ;  they  were  all  made  by  the  same  hand, 
and  they  are  all  good  in  their  place. 

But  necessary  as  all  this  training  was,  it  was  not  sufficient  to 
fit  him  for  the  work  he  had  to  do.  And  so,  when  time  was 
ripe,  —  after  he  had  married  a  wife,  had  had  children,  and  had 
tasted  of  those  domestic  joys  and  sorrows  to  which  he  so  often 
and  touchingly  refers,  —  he  was  driven  out  into  the  wide  workl 
at  the  age  of  one  or  two  and  twenty,  to  mingle  in  that  stern 
strife  of  life  of  which  he  had  hitherto  known  comparatively  little. 
That  his  exile  was  compulsory  rather  than  voluntary,  there  is 
little  reason  to  doubt.  Not  only  is  the  deer-stealing  tradition 
too  well  corroborated  by  unmistakable  allusions  to  the  youthful 
frolic  —  and  in  those  days  it  was  a  frolic  —  in  two  of  his  plays, 
but  it  is  also  extremely  unlikely  that  a  man  of  his  "  measureless 
content,"  and  one  so  careless  of  fame  withal,  should  have  left 
his  home  and  all  his  friends  to  become  a  wanderer  from  choice. 
Whatever  the  cause,  however,  an  exile  he  became,  and  for  a 
period  of  seven  or  eight  years  we  lose  all  trace  of  him. 

At  the  end  of  that  time  he  comes  to  the  surface  again  in  Lon- 
don in  a  manner  very  significant.  "  There  is  an  upstart  crow," 
writes  Robert  Greene,  one  of  the  lesser  dramatists  of  the  day, 
to  whom  reference  has  already  been  made,  "  beautified  with  our 
feathers,  and  with  his  tygre's  head  wrapped  in  a  player's  hide," 
—  an  evident  parody  on  a  line  in  "  Henry  VI."  —  "  supposes  he 
is  as  well  able  to  bombast  out  a  blanke  verse  as  the  best  of 
you ;  and,  being  an  absolute  Johannes  Factotum,  is,  in  his  own 
conceyte,  the  only  Shakes  scene  in  a  countrey."  From  which 
malicious  passage  it  may  be  gathered  that  our  poet  had  already 


270  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

attained  some  degree  of  popularity  as  a  playwright,  if  not  as  an 
actor.  As  to  what  impelled  him  to  turn  his  attention  to  the 
stage,  —  whether  stern  necessity  drove  him  thither,  or  whether 
the  moving  cause  was  natural  inclination,  pricked  on  by  the 
experiences  of  that  high  day  when  his  father,  as  bailiff  of  Strat- 
ford, licensed  the  Queen's  Players  to  play  there,  "  payed " 
them  "  xi  1."  for  their  services,  and  "  proveysyoned  "  them  to 
the  magnificent  extent  of  "  iij  s.  vj  p."  —  no  one  knows.  And 
posterity  is  left  equally  in  the  dark  as  to  the  manner  in  which 
he  was  first  introduced  into  the  theatrical  fraternity  of  the 
metropolis. 

Once  there,  however,  there  was  plenty  of  scope  for  his  talent. 
The  stage  had  become  the  institution  of  the  day.  The  food 
with  which  it  supplied  the  eager  appetite  of  its  patrons  was  not 
of  a  very  satisfying  kind.  No  less  than  seventeen  playhouses 
had  either  been  erected  or  extemporized  out  of  the  old  inn  yards  . 
within  the  preceding  ten  years.  The  dramatists  of  the  day, 
though  numerous  and  very  fecund,  were,  with  the  exception  of 
Marlowe,  Greene,  and  Peele,  the  merest  poetasters.  When, 
therefore,  our  poet  was  once  able  to  place  his  thoughts,  instinct 
with  life  and  beauty  as  they  were,  before  the  thousands  of 
London  who  crowded  the  theatres  from  "  three  of  the  afternoon 
till  sunset,"  -—  and,  "  lest  it  might  hurt  the  morals  of  the  young," 
no  stage  play  was  allowed  to  be  acted  after  dark,  —  we  may  be 
sure  that  he  had  plunged  into  that  "  tide  which,  taken  at  the 
flood,  leads  on  to  fortune."  For  though  the  sturdy  old  citizens 
of  London  were  but  ill- fitted  out  with  book  learning,  their  con- 
stant contact  with  the  drama  had  doubtless  bred  in  them  an  un- 
erring judgment  as  to  the  intrinsic  worth  of  what  was  acted  out 
before  them.  And  in  the  new  candidate  for  their  favors  they 
saw  what  they  had  never  seen  before,  —  a  true  poet,  whose 
plastic  mind  had  not  only  moulded  to  its  purpose  the  surpassing 
loveliness  of  the  scenes  in  the  midst  of  which  it  had  expanded 
into  strength,  but  had  also,  partly  by  intuition,  partly  by  com- 
munion with  the  past,  and  partly  by  actual  contact,  seized  upon 
and  appropriated  the  spirit  of  the  eminently  vigorous  age  upon 
which  it  had  been  its  hap  to  fall. 


WILLIAM    SHAKSPEARE.  271 

Wherever  Shakspeare  had  spent  his  days,  or  whatever  had 
been  his  occupation  during  that  seven  years  of  his  history 
which  to  us  is  a  blank,  he  had  used  his  time  well.  He  had 
dipped  deep  into  the  almost  fathomless  abysses  of  the 'human 
mind,  and  studied  some  of  the  most  perplexing  problems  of 
life.  All  the  harvestings  of  his  earlier  years,  rich  though  they 
were,  had  been  thrust  upward  by  the  solid  mass  of  deeper 
knowledge  which  he  had  assimilated,  until  the  profoundest 
truths  which  he  had  learned  in  the  meadows  and  woodlands 
became  but  the  outer  garb  and  embellishments  of  his  greater 
utterances  concerning  human  nature.  He  had  learned  to 
portray  mankind  as  it  had  never  been  portrayed  before.  His 
creations  were  no  mere  stage  men  and  women,  like  the  produc- 
tions of  other  dramatists,  but  actual  living  beings,  with  all  their 
complex  passions  working  darkly  one  against  the  other,  and 
striving  ever  with  that  inner  consciousness  of  truth,  which, 
however  powerful  or  however  weak  it  may  be,  lies  deep  down 
in  every  human  heart.  His  Bottoms  and  his  Slys,  and  his 
almost  endless  variety  of  the  rustic,  he  had  doubtless  seen  at 
Stratford.  But  for  his  higher  creations  —  his  Macbeths,  his 
Lears,  his  Hamlets,  and  his  lagos,  his  Greek  and  Roman  heroes, 
his  English  kings  and  queens,  his  great  statesmen  and  eccle- 
siastics, his  wonderful  and  varied  portraitures  of  women,  tender, 
passionate,  cruel,  and  capricious,  —  for  all  these,  and  for  his 
vivid  pictures  of  the  strifes  of  nations,  of  parties,  and  of  families, 
and  of  that  harder  strife  of  man  against  himself,  he  was  no 
doubt  indebted  to  his  wanderings,  his  reading,  and  his  insight, 
but  more  than  anything  else,  perhaps,  to  the  circumstances  of 
the  age  in  which  he  lived.  For  as  yet  the  past  still  gilded  the 
mountain-tops  with  its  dying  splendor,  and  a  new  and  brighter 
day  was  dawning  ere  the  old  sun  had  set. 

This,  then,  being  the  man,  and  this  the  kind  of  preparation 
he  had  undergone,  it  is  not  surprising  that  in  a  day  in  which 
the  drama  was  in  great  demand  and  the  dramatists  were  feeble 
he  should  speedily  have  found  a  profitable  field  for  his  labor. 
As  with  his  country  life,  however,  so  with  his  life  in  London, — 

we  know  few  of  the  details.     He  acted  and  he  wrote ;  and  at 
Ib 


2/2  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

length  he  became  part  proprietor  of  the  Globe  Theatre.  He 
took  out  a  coat-of-arms ;  he  bought  property  at  Stratford. 
He  was  high  in  favor  with  Elizabeth  and  James  I.,  and  on 
terms  of  intimacy  with  some  of  the  worthiest  noblemen  about 
the  Court.  Jonson,  his  friend  and  fellow-laborer,  "  loved  and 
honored  him,"  as  he  says,  "  on  this  side  idolatry  as  much  as 
any."  Spenser,  bursting  into  enthusiasm,  declares  himself 
proud  of  being  his  contemporary.  And  so  the  poet  passed 
placidly  onward,  the  companion  of  the  great,  the  lover  of  the 
lowly,  earning  his  daily  bread  like  any  other  honest  man,  re- 
generating the  only  public  secular  teacher  of  his  day,  husband- 
ing his  own  resources  against  a  future  that  never  came,  and 
preparing  for  posterity  "  a  perpetual  feast  of  nectared  sweets 
where  no  crude  surfeit  reigns."  He  cared  not  for  wealth  and 
worldly  honors  except  as  means  to  an  end ;  for  as  soon  as 
he  had  attained  a  modest  competency,  he  quietly  quitted  the 
scene  of  his  achievements  and  triumphs,  and,  with  "  his  blush- 
ing honors  thick  upon  him,"  retired  once  more  to  Stratford  to 
spend  the  evening  of  life  among  the  scenes  and  friends  of  his 
youth. 

And  there  he  lived  a  few  short  years,  and  there  he  died,  in 
the  meridian  of  his  working  life,  at  the  age  of  fifty-two,  on 
the  same  day  as  Cervantes,  and,  like  Petrarch,  on  his  reputed 
birthday.  He  lies  buried  in  the  chancel  of  the  old  church  hard 
by  the  Avon,  and  over  his  tomb  there  is  a  bust,  said  to  have 
been  cut  from  a  cast  of  his  features  taken  after  death.  This 
and  the  Droeshout  engraving — forming  the  frontispiece  to  the 
first  folio  edition  of  his  works  published  seven  years  after  his 
death,  and  vouched  for  by  Ben  Jonson  —  are  the  only  two  por- 
traits of  the  poet  which  have  come  down  to  us  authenticated 
by  contemporary  record.  But  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  the 
tradition  that  the  Chandos  and  Jansen  pictures  were  painted 
from  life  while  he  was  in  London  and  in  the  zenith  of  his 
theatrical  career. 


JOHN     MILTON. 


JOHN   MILTON.  27$ 


JOHN    MILTON. 

[BORN  DEC.  9,  1608.     DIED  Nov.  10,  1674.] 

*"THHE  surrounding  circumstances  of  our  youth  are  generally 
-*•  the  moulds  from  which  the  events  of  our  after  life  are 
cast.  The  boyhood  of  John  Milton  was  one  in  which  the 
highest  advantages  of  domestic  example  and  education  were 
afforded  him,  so  that  we  expect  a  cast  of  a  refined  character  to 
come  from  this  mould.  His  father  was  a  man  of  great  profi- 
ciency in  music,  and  he  displayed  considerable  ability  in  many 
other  branches  of  learning,  being  a  scrivener  by  profession.  By 
this  occupation  he  acquired  a  handsome  fortune.  We  think 
that  those  views  of  religious  and  civil  liberty  which  John  Milton 
so  strenuously  advocated  during  the  whole  period  of  his  life 
were  received  by  him  in  his  early  days  from  the  teaching  and 
moral  example  of  his  father.  This  father  suffered  much  for  con- 
science' sake.  He  was  disinherited  by  his  parents  on  account  of 
his  giving  up  their  religious  principles,  which  were  those  of  the 
Romish  faith,  and  embracing  the  Protestant  religion.  Not  only 
did'  he  receive  this  training  for  liberty  from  his  father,  but  he 
had  also  a  sound  moral  and  religious  example  in  his  mother. 
She  was  a  woman  of  modest  piety  and  incomparable  virtue. 
Did  not  this  well-formed  mould  develop  a  faithful  cast?  Was 
not  the  manhood  of  John  Milton  an  exact  copy  of  these  two 
natures  combined?  He  was  a  zealous  advocate  for  those  same 
principles  of  liberty  that  his  father  was  persecuted  for  uphold- 
ing, and  a  thoroughly  earnest  and  pious  Protestant. 

At  first  he  received  his  education  at  home  from  one  Thomas 
Young,  who  says  that  the  progress  of  his  pupil  in  every  depart- 
ment of  learning  was  so  rapid  that  it  completely  outran  his 
utmost  efforts. 


276  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

At  the  early  age  of  twelve  he  exhibited  quick  powers  of  per- 
ception and  an  extraordinary  thirst  for  knowledge,  so  that  he 
had  to  be  restrained  rather  than  encouraged,  and  his  books  were 
seldom  left  till  midnight.  Determined  to  make  John  Milton  a 
scholar,  his  father  sent  him  to  St.  Paul's  School,  through  which 
he  passed,  entering  Christ's  College,  Cambridge,  at  the  age  of 
fifteen.  Whilst  there,  he  exhibited  his  extraordinary  poetic 
genius,  composing  a  poem  on  the  Gunpowder  Plot. 

Retiring  to  his  father's  rural  estate  at  Horton,  in  Bucking- 
hamshire, he  spent  five  years  in  quiet  classical  study,  and 
produced  a  delightful  composition  entitled  "  Comus :  a  Mask," 
which  was  presented  at  Ludlow  Castle  before  the  Earl  of  Bridge- 
water,  then  Lord  President  of  Wales,  by  his  children.  Hun- 
dreds of  people  at  the  present  time  use  the  thoughts  that 
Milton  set  forth  in  this  production,  unconscious  of  their  source. 
Some  of  them  have  become  familiar  and  common  in  almost 
every  household  in  the  land,  and  on  reading  it  for  the  first  time 
we  cannot  but  be  astonished  with  this  fact. 

After  travelling  through  Paris,  Florence,  Rome,  Naples,  and 
other  continental  cities,  —  his  tour  extending  over  a  period  of 
about  fifteen  months, — he  engaged  apartments  in  the  house  of  a 
tailor  named  Russell,  in  St.  Bride's  Churchyard,  London,  where 
he  undertook  the  education  of  two  of  his  nephews.  Removing 
from  here,  being  induced  by  some  friends  to  educate  their  chil- 
dren, he  took  a  house  in  Aldersgate  Street  and  became  a 
schoolmaster.  But  teaching  was  not  the  only  theme  with 
which  Milton's  mind  was  now  occupied.  There  was  a  stern 
struggle  raging  between  the  King  and  the  Commons,  and  the 
public  mind  was  in  a  great  tumult.  Now  was  the  time  for  the 
early  tuition  of  liberty  which  Milton  had  received  to  be  brought 
into  use,  and  it  soon  made  itself  known.  He  became  a  most 
vigorous  writer  on  the  side  of  the  Commons ;  but  by  so  doing 
he  placed  himself  in  great  danger.  The  dangerous  position  in 
which  he  stood  may  be  gleaned  from  the  fact  that  Alexander 
Leighton,  in  consequence  of  writing  some  pamphlets,  which 
were  in  the  same  strain  as  those  which  came  from  the  pen 
of  Milton,  had  his  nose  slit  and  his  ears  cut  off,  and  received 


JOHN    MILTON.  277 

a  public  whipping ;  and  that  Prynne  was  sentenced  to  stand  in 
the  pillory,  to  lose  both  his  ears,  and  to  pay  a  fine  of  ^3,000; 
and  on  another  occasion  the  same  man  was  condemned  to  be 
branded  on  both  cheeks,  to  pay  a  fine  of  ,£5,000,  and  to  be 
imprisoned  for  life.  Thus  Milton,  in  fighting  as  he  did  with 
his  pen  against  the  King,  was  placing  himself  in  danger  of 
undergoing  a  like  punishment.  But  boldly  did  he  defend  his 
convictions,  flinching  not  before  bishops,  archbishops,  or  kings. 
This  boldness  is  exhibited  in  an  interview  he  had  with  the  Duke 
of  York,  who  afterwards  became  James  II.  The  Duke,  whilst 
talking  one  day  to  his  brother,  the  King,  expressed  a  wish 
to  see  this  old  man  of  whom  he  had  heard  so  much.  The 
King  raised  no  objection,  and  an  interview  was  soon  the  result. 
Though  so  very  dissimilar  in  character,  the  two  entered  into  a 
very  free  conversation.  But  the  Duke  could  not  refrain  from 
putting  questions  of  a  partisan  kind  to  Milton.  He  said,  "  Do 
you  not  regard  the  loss  of  your  eyesight  as  a  judgment  inflicted 
upon  you  for  what  you  have  written  against  the  late  King?" 
Milton  in  response  asked  him,  if  these  afflictions  were  to  be 
regarded  as  judgments  from  Heaven,  in  what  manner  he  would 
account  for  the  fate  of  the  late  King.  He  argued  that  the  dis- 
pleasure of  Heaven  must  have  been  greater  against  the  King 
than  himself,  as  he  had  only  lost  his  eyes,  but  the  King  had 
lost  his  head.  Milton  must  have  had  courage  indeed  to  have 
answered  the  Duke  in  this  manner.  It  may  be  remarked  that 
the  Duke  speedily  left  the  house  of  Milton,  and  talking  to  the 
King  about  his  visit  told  him  that  he  was  greatly  to  blame  if  he 
did  not  have  Milton  hanged.  He  then  described  the  old  poet 
to  the  King,  and  said  he  was  very  old  and  very  poor.  "  Old 
and  poor !  "  said  the  King.  "  Well,  he  is  blind,  too,  is  he  not?  " 
Again  the  Duke  described  the  old  man,  adding  that  he  was  as 
blind  as  a  beetle.  "  Why,  then,  you  are  a  fool,  James.  You 
will  not  punish  him  by  having  him  hanged,  you  will  be  doing 
him  a  service ;  it  will  be  taking  him  out  of  his  miseries.  No : 
if  he  is  poor,  old,  and  blind,  he  is  miserable  enough;  in  all  con- 
science, let  him  live." 

This  extraordinary  poet  was   a  man    who   had   to  undergo 


278  OUR  GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 

extraordinary  trouble.  He  had  only  been  married  about  a  month 
to  Mary  Powell,  the  daughter  of  a  wealthy  Royalist,  when  his  bride 
desired  to  spend  her  summer  holidays  with  her  friends  in  Ox- 
fordshire. Her  request  was  granted.  She  went,  and  was  to  have 
returned  at  Michaelmas.  Michaelmas  came,  but  brought  back  no 
Mary  Powell.  Milton  wrote  many  letters,  but  they  were  not  an- 
swered. A  messenger  was  next  sent,  demanding  her  immediate 
return ;  but,  sending  him  away  with  contempt,  she  positively 
refused  to  rejoin  her  husband.  When  this  was  told  Milton,  he 
declared  that  he  would  no  longer  hold  her  as  his  wife.  This  cir- 
cumstance caused  him  to  study  the  nature  of  the  marriage  tie, 
which  investigation  resulted  in  his  publishing  a  work  on  the 
doctrine  and  discipline  of  divorce.  But  Milton  and  Mary  Powell 
were  not  parted  forever.  Four  years  after,  she  heard  he  was 
visiting  a  friend  ;  and  whilst  there  she  suddenly  came  before  him, 
and  kneeling  at  his  feet,  with  tears,  implored  him  to  forgive  her. 
He  forgave  her  all,  and  soon  received  her  father,  mother,  and 
several  of  her  brothers  and  sisters  into  his  own  house.  But  this 
was  only  the  commencement  of  his  trials.  His  eldest  daughter, 
Anne,  as  a  result  of  some  accident  in  her  infancy,  was  lame 
during  the  remainder  of  her  life;  his  third  son  only  lived  a  few 
months;  and  in  the  month  of  May,  1652,  another  daughter  was 
born  at  the  cost  of  her  mother's  life.  In  addition  to  these,  his 
own  eyes  were  growing  dim,  and  the  rapid  advance  of  blindness 
was  painfully  seen.  Soon  after  the  doctor  discovered  that  blind- 
ness was  approaching,  he  lost  the  entire  sight  of  one  eye,  and 
about  three  years  after,  he  says  in  a  letter  to  a  friend,  he  had 
become  totally  blind.  Altogether  we  see  that  he  had  a  deal  of 
trouble  and  affliction ;  but  it  was  all  borne  by  this  noble  patriot 
manfully,  and  with  patience  and  calm  resignation,  as  his  poem 
on  his  blindness  indicates.  Again  we  notice  his  dignified  resig- 
nation to  his  lot  in  some  words  spoken  by  him  in  reply  to  one 
of  his  antagonists :  "  It  is  not  miserable  to  be  blind.  He 
only  is  miserable  who  cannot  acquiesce  in  his  blindness  with 
fortitude;  and  why  should  I  repine  at  a  calamity  which  every 
man's  mind  ought  to  be  so  prepared  and  disciplined  as  to  be 
able  to  undergo  with  patience,  —  a  calamity  to  which  every  man 


JOHN   MILTON.  279 

by  the  condition  of  his  nature  is  liable,  and  which  I  know  to 
have  been  the  lot  of  some  of  the  greatest  of  my  species?" 

Engaged  in  such  an  important  office  as  Latin  Secretary  to 
Cromwell,  one  would  think  that  this  affliction  would  cause  him 
to  retire  from  his  position.  But  it  had  not  this  effect.  He  con- 
tinued his  work  with  all  his  accustomed  energy  till  the  Restora- 
tion, dictating  all  the  most  important  correspondence  of  the 
Commonwealth.  But  it  is  not  on  account  of  this  office  or  of 
his  Republican  views  that  we  revere  him.  That  which  is  con- 
troversial and  partisan  about  him  is  not  the  man  in  his  best 
colors.  It  is  as  a  poet  that  we  delight  to  look  upon  him.  That 
by  which  the  world  has  judged  him  has  not  been  his  political 
pamphlets,  but  his  poetical  compositions.  But,  be  it  remem- 
bered, it  was  not  in  such  a  light  that  the  people  of  his  own  time 
looked  upon  him.  He  was  regarded  then  only  as  an  advocate 
for  Republicanism.  The  exquisite  verses  that  came  from  his 
pen  were  little  valued  by  the  excited  people  in  the  time  they 
were  written.  So  little  were  they  regarded  that  Milton's  bust 
was  refused  a  place  in  the  Poets'  Corner  of  Westminster  Abbey ; 
whilst  a  monument  was  readily  granted  and  erected  to  one  John 
Phillips,  whose  only  work  was  a  poem  on  the  "  Splendid  Shil- 
ling," which  has  long  since  been  forgotten.  We  need  scarcely 
say  that  about  fifty  years  afterwards  it  was  with  universal  ap- 
proval that  a  monument  was  placed  within  those  historic  walls 
"  as  a  tribute  to  one  of  the  greatest  of  our  poets."  That  im- 
mortal poem,  "  Paradise  Lost,"  was  written  during  a  time  of 
adversity  and  poverty,  but  when  his  powers  were  in  the  fulness 
of  vigor.  He  was  blind  at  the  time,  and  the  writing  of  the  verses 
was  done  principally  by  his  second  wife.  She  tells  us  that  he 
composed  generally  the  first  thing  in  the  morning,  and  she  had 
to  write  him  down  twenty  or  thirty  verses,  —  mostly  composing 
more  in  the  winter  than  the  summer.  Thus  slowly  but  untir- 
ingly his  grand  work  went  on ;  and  whilst  the  first  edition  was 
in  the  press,  he  quietly  departed  this  life.  But  though  his  body 
has  been  committed  to  the  dust,  his  great  epic  lives,  —  a 
noble  monument,  that  will  remain  as  long  as  the  world  lasts. 
It  has  been  translated  into  Greek,  Latin,  Italian,  French,  Ger- 


280  OUR  GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 

man,  Dutch,  and  Portuguese ;  and  several  other  poems  of  his 
have  been  translated  into  various  languages.  "  Paradise  Lo^t  " 
is,  in  one  respect,  like  the  Bible,  —  it  can  be  looked  into  at  ran- 
dom, and  wherever  the  eye  rests  the  mind  will  be  enlightened 
and  the  heart  refreshed  by  the  thoughts  contained  therein. 
Dean  Stanley,  truly  says  it  has  "  colored  all  English  theology 
from  top  to  bottom."  When  John  Dryden  first  saw  it  he  was 
heard  to  exclaim,  "  This  man  cuts  us  all  out,  and  the  ancients 
too !  "  The  words  used  by  Sir  John  Denman  concerning  this 
poem  are  well  worth  quoting.  On  entering  the  House  of  Com- 
mons with  a  proof-sheet  in  his  hand  he  said,  "  This  is  part  of 
the  noblest  poem  that  ever  was  written  in  any  language  or  in 
any  age." 


JOHN    BUNYAN. 

[BORN  1628.     DIED  AUG.  31,  1688.] 

"^HE  worth,  both  moral  and  mental,  of  an  age  may  be  esti- 
•*-  mated  with  considerable  accuracy  by  the  value  it  puts  on 
its  great  men.  If  we  weigh  the  reign  of  Charles  II.  in  such 
a  balance,  we  shall  find  it  altogether  wanting.  England  had  in 
those  days  two  giants  among  her  children.  Of  these  heroic 
spirits,  the  chief,  Milton,  was  writing  "  Paradise  Lost "  in  blind- 
ness, poverty,  and  neglect ;  the  other,  less  gifted  than  he,  but 
still  mighty,  produced  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress  "  while  he  lay 
a  prisoner  for  conscience'  sake  in  Bedford  jail. 

Macaulay  and  Southey  —  two  men  who,  antagonistic  in  all 
other  respects,  were  alike  quick  to  recognize  a  hero  —  have  left 
us  vivid  pictures  of  Bunyan.  His  rough  boyhood,  the  strange 
contrast  that  his  youth  presented  between  the  most  reckless 
profanity  of  speech  and  the  most  rigid  sobriety  of  behavior, 
the  fear  of  hell  that  for  several  years  kept  his  soul  as  in  the  grip 
of  a  fiend,  —  all  these  things  the  biographers  in  question  have 
set  down  fairly.  Of  the  intense  religious  enthusiasm  that  did 


JOHN    BUNYAN. 


JOHN   BUNYAN.  283 

not  consume  his  soul  but  illumined  it,  they  are,  however,  incom- 
petent critics.  Neither  can  fully  comprehend  the  height  and 
depth  of  the  spirit  of  Bunyan.  When  a  recognition  of  the 
omnipresence  of  God  had  so  thoroughly  imbued  this  fervent 
genius  that,  lifting  up  his  head  after  long  musing  on  his  sins  and 
the  condition  to  which  they  had  brought  him,  the  perturbed 
Pilgrim  conceived  the  wrath  of  his  Creator  as  flaming  at  him  in 
the  glances  of  the  sun  and  written  legibly  on  the  stones  of  the 
street,  Macaulay  can  compare  him  only  to  the  madman  who 
sees  frightful  faces  threatening  him  from  the  corners  of  his  cell. 
When  Bunyan,  for  refusing  to  cease  preaching,  and  not  a  word 
or  deed  beyond,  was  addressed  as  follows:  "Hear  your  judg- 
ment. You  must  be  had  back  again  to  prison,  and  there  lie  for 
three  months  following ;  and  at  three  months'  end,  if  you  do 
not  submit  to  go  to  church  and  leave  your  preaching,  you  must 
be  banished  the  realm.  And  if,  after  such  a  day  as  shall  be  ap- 
pointed you  to  be  gone,  you  shall  be  found  in  this  realm,  you 
must  stretch  by  the  neck  for  it:  I  tell  you  plainly,"  —  when 
persecution  had  thus  spoken,  Southey,  contemplating  its  victim 
as  he  turns  away  to  his  twelve  years'  imprisonment,  finds  him 
rather  fanatic  than  martyr. 

"Will  your  husband  leave  preaching?  "  asked  Judge  Twisden, 
when  Elizabeth  Bunyan  pleaded  to  Sir  Matthew  Hale  and  him- 
self for  the  release  of  her  husband,  telling  them  of  the  "  four 
small  children  by  the  former  wife,  one  of  them  blind,"  and  that 
"  they  had  nothing  to  live  upon  while  their  father  was  in  prison 
but  the  charity  of  good  people."  "  My  lord,"  replied  the  daunt- 
less woman,  "  he  daros  not  leave  preaching  while  he  can  speak." 
She  was  his  wife,  and  knew  him.  After  years  of  spiritual  con- 
flict, and  prayers  that  were  little  more  than  groans,  Bunyan  at 
length  saw  his  way  clear  before  him,  and  would  not  turn  from  it 
because  there  were  lions  in  the  path.  In  the  Book  of  Martyrs, 
that  marvellous  record  of  the  limitless  endurance  of  human- 
ity, he  had  read,  with  the  unspeakable  emotion  of  a  mighty 
spirit,  when  out  of  the  distance  of  centuries  there  comes  to  it 
the  voice  of  a  brother,  the  dying  words  of  the  Italian  martyr, 
Pomponius  Algerius,  Writing  from  his  prison  while  the  stake 


284  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

is  being  driven  into  the  ground  and  the  fagots  heaped,  this 
truest  hero  can  find  only  expressions  of  hope  and  joy.  "  Here," 
he  tells  his  friends,  "  is  Mount  Sion ;  here  I  am  already  in  Heaven 
itself.  Here  standeth  first  Christ  Jesus  in  the  front;  about  him 
stand  the  old  patriarchs,  prophets,  and  evangelists,  apostles,  and 
all  the  servants  of  God,  of  whom  some  do  embrace  and  cherish 
me,  some  comfort  me,  other  some  are  singing  about  me.  How 
then  shall  I  be  thought  to  be  alone,  among  so  many  and  such  as 
these  !  "  A  few  hours  and  the  hand  that  penned  these  lines  was 
burned  to  ashes ;  the  letter  remained,  to  burn  its  way  into  the 
heart  of  Bunyan.  "Was  not  this  man,"  he  cries,  "a  giant? 
Had  he  not  also  now  hold  of  the  shield  of  faith?  In  the  com- 
bat did  he  not  behave  himself  valiantly?"  Only  at  that  day 
when  earth  in  passing  away  forever  yields  up  all  her  secrets, 
shall  we  know  how  large  a  share  Pomponius  Algerius  had  in 
the  production  of  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress."  The  prison  where 
it  was  written  Bunyan  might  never  have  entered  had  not  the 
trumpet  voice  of  the  Paduan  student  so  transported  his  soul.  As 
the  doors  were  about  to  close  on  him,  the  miseries  his  family 
must  henceforth  undergo  rose  up  before  him  like  so  many 
spectres,  and  had  all  but  thrust  him  back.  Truth  in  seasons 
of  sorrow  is  always  more  pathetic  than  fiction.  No  novelist 
ever  equalled  the  few  sentences  in  which  Bunyan  expresses  the 
grief  that  afflicted  him  at  parting  with  his  blind  daughter,  dearer 
than  his  three  other  children  to  the  father  whose  face  she  was 
never  to  behold.  "  The  thoughts  of  the  hardships  my  poor 
blind  one  might  go  under  would  break  my  heart  to  pieces. 
Poor  child,  thought  I,  what  sorrow  art  tjiou  like  to  have  for 
thy  portion  in  this  world !  Thou  must  be  beaten,  must  beg, 
suffer  hunger,  cold,  nakedness,  and  a  thousand  calamities, 
though  I  cannot  now  endure  the  wind  should  blow  upon 
thee."  Is  it  to  be  wondered  at  that  he  paused?  His  con- 
flict of  spirit,  however,  was  but  momentary.  As  he  hesitated 
there  flamed  on  him  the  remembrance  of  the  army  of  mar- 
tyrs, and  he  thought  with  what  trust  all  these  had  rendered 
up  their  souls  to  God.  "  I  must  do  it,"  he  cries  to  his  family. 
"  Though  it  gocth  to  the  quick  to  leave  you,  I  must  venture 


JOHN    BUNYAN.  285 

you  all  with  God."  Once  in  prison  some  words  of  Pomponius 
Algerius  returned  again  and  again  to  his  mind.  "  In  this  world," 
the  Italian  hero  had  written,  "  there  is  no  mansion  firm  to  me, 
and  therefore  I  will  travel  up  to  the  New  Jerusalem  which  is  in 
Heaven,  and  which  offereth  itself  to  me.  .  .  .  Behold,  I  have 
already  entered  on  my  journey,  where  my  house  standeth  for 
me  prepared,  and  where  I  shall  have  riches,  kinsfolks,  delights, 
honors  never  failing."  Musing  on  this  city  of  triumph,  Bunyan 
laid  aside  one  day  the  laces  he  was  making  for  the  support  of 
his  family,  and  with  pen  and  ink  before  him  began,  in  his  own 
phrase,  "  to  dream  a  dream."  Presently  out  of  the  fire  of  his 
trials  there  had  risen  a  phcenix,  and  from  that  dim  prison  at 
Bedford  a  book  went  forth,  the  pages  of  which  are  lit  with 
something  of  the  light  of  heaven. 

Since  the  death  of  its  author  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress  "  has 
pressed  forward  on  a  pilgrimage  of  its  own,  that,  becoming  ever 
more  and  more  triumphant,  shall  end  only  when  wreaths  of 
amaranth  replace  our  earthly  laurels.  The  fame  of  Bunyan  has 
grown  in  stature  with  the  successive  editions  of  his  book.  He, 
whom  his  townspeople  spoke  of  as  a  "  pestilent  fellow,"  and 
Bedford  magistrates  bade  get  to  his  tinkering,  holds  now  a  fo're- 
most  place  among  the  worthies  that  England  delights  to  honor. 
Bedford,  that  once  imprisoned  him  as  a  troublesome  fanatic, 
thinks  it  her  highest  honor  to  possess  the  statue  of  the  Pilgrim  a 
twelve  years'  captivity  stayed  so  cruelly  on  his  passage  through 
life.  In  the  very  market  place  where  two  centuries  ago  the  blind 
daughter  of  John  Bunyan  sold  the  laces  her  father  had  made, 
men  high  in  Church  and  State  gathered  a  few  years  back  to  see 
unveiled  the  effigy  of  a  man  whose  allegory  is,  next  to  the  Bible, 
the  delight  of  pious  hearts,  and  points  more  nobly  than  ever-did 
cathedral  spire  to  the  land  where,  whatever  be  the  darkness  of 
earth,  there  shines  an  eternal  day.  For  as  there  are  many  repu- 
tations that  blaze  across  the  firmament  of  literature  like  meteors, 
and  suddenly  disappear,  so  a  few  can  be  numbered  that,  at  first 
feeble  as  the  tiny  lamp  of  the  glow-worm,  wax  gradually  into  a 
fulness  of  light  by  which  the  steps  of  generation  after  generation 
are  guided,  Among  such  stars  a  splendor  of  the  first  magnitude 


286  OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

must  be  assigned  to  Bunyan.  His  praise  is  no  longer  left  solely 
to  the  pens  of  Dissenters,  and  his  greatness  and  goodness  are 
recognized  as  the  common  glory  of  every  Christian  church.  It 
is  fitting  that  this  should  be  the  lot  of  a  man  who  died  from  an 
illness  caught  while  trying  to  reconcile  a  father  and  son,  and 
who,  when  required  to  name  his  sect,  replied,  "  Since  you 
would  know  by  what  name  I  would  be  distinguished  from 
others,  I  choose,  if  God  should  count  me  worthy,  to  be  called 
a  Christian" 


BISHOP   GILBERT    BURNET. 

[BORN  1643.     DIED  1715.] 

THE  subject  of  our  present  memoir  was  born  in  those 
troublesome  times  which  formed  the  cradle  of  th£  inde- 
pendence of  which  we  are  proud.  He  was  born  at  Edinburgh 
in  1643,  descended  from  an  ancient  family  of  the  county  of 
Aberdeen.  His  father  was  a  lawyer,  and  after  the  Restoration 
was  appointed  one  of  the  Lords  of  the  Session  by  the  title  of 
Lord  Crimond.  About  the  age  of  ten  Gilbert  was  sent  to  Mar- 
ischal  College,  Aberdeen.  At  fourteen  he  was  admitted  to  the 
degree  of  M.  A.  His  own  inclinations  would  have  led  him  to 
the  bar,  but,  to  the  delight  of  his  father,  he  changed  his  mind 
and  applied  himself  to  divinity.  At  eighteen  he  was  ordained. 
Being  shortly  offered  a  benefice  by  Sir  Alexander  Burnet,  he 
refused  it  from  conscientious  motives.  In  1663  he  went  to 
England,  and  after  six  months  returned  to  Scotland.  After- 
wards he  made  a  tour  of  Holland  and  France.  During  this 
journey  he  was  not  unmindful  of  his  studies.  At  Amsterdam, 
by  aid  of  a  Jewish  Rabbi,  he  perfected  his  knowledge  of  He- 
brew. Not  only  so,  he  made  acquaintance  with  the  leading 
men  of  every  section.  This  was  not  without  fruit.  He  learned 
a  lesson  of  charity,  which  taught  him  without  abnegation  of  his 
own  opinion  to  perceive  that  there  were  good  men  in  every 


19 


BISHOP    GILBERT    BURNET. 


BISHOP    GILBERT   BURNET.  289 

party,  —  that  bitterness  of  opinion  was  not  becoming  the  true 
Christian  character. 

Upon  his  return  he  served  as  minister  of  Saltoun  for  five 
years.  At  this  period  he  drew  up  a  memorial  of  some  faults  in 
the  conduct  of  the  Scottish  bishops,  which  he  thought  were  not 
according  to  primitive  custom.  He  sent  a  copy  of  the  memo- 
rial to  each  bishop.  Such  a  proceeding  necessarily  brought 
odium  upon  him.  To  show  that  he  was  not  ambitious  or 
moved  by  unworthy  motives  he  retired  into  private  life  for  two 
years,  during  which  excessive  study  endangered  his  health. 

In  1663  he  was  appointed  Professor  of  Divinity  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Glasgow.  According  to  the  custom  of  the  time  he 
delivered  his  lectures  in  Latin.  Here  he  also  laid  the  foun- 
dation of  theological  knowledge.  In  1669  he  published  a 
"  Modest  and  Free  Conference  between  Conformist  and  Non- 
conformist." Through  this  work  he  became  acquainted  with 
the  Duchess  of  Hamilton,  and  with  the  aid  of  the  papers  of  her 
father  and  her  uncle  she  furnished,  he  sent  forth  the  "  Memoirs 
of  the  Dukes  of  Hamilton."  Whilst  thus  employed  the  Duke  of 
Lauderdale  heard  of  him,  invited  him  to  London,  and  gave  him 
an  introduction  to  Charles  II.  Soon  after  this  he  returned  to 
Scotland  and  married  Lady  Mary  Kennedy,  daughter  of  the 
Earl  of  Cassilis.  This  lady  was  well  known  for  her  great  knowl- 
edge, and  highly  esteemed  among  the  Presbyterians.  There 
was  a  great  inequality  of  age,  and  Burnet,  to  show  that  the 
match  was  one  not  of  avarice  but  of  affection,  caused,  the  day 
before  the  marriage,  a  deed  to  be  drawn  out,  by  which  he 
renounced  any  advantage  which  might  have  accrued  to  him 
from  her  death,  which  happened  shortly  afterwards. 

In  1673  he  published  "Vindication  of  the  Authority,  Consti- 
tution, and  Law  of  the  Church  and  State  of  Scotland."  This 
work  aroused  the  attention  of  the  Government,  and,  being 
highly  approved,  he  was  offered  a  bishopric.  He  declined,  as 
he  was  opposed  on  principle  to  what  he  considered  the  PopisJi 
inclinations  of  the  Court.  However,  through  the  influence  of 
the  Dukes  of  Hamilton  and  Lauderdale,  he  was  brought  into 
the  Court  and  consulted  by  many.  But  having  offended 


290  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Lauderdale,  the  most  unscrupulous  of  the  men  of  his  age,  he 
me.  with  a  cool  reception.  Desirous  of  returning  to  Scotland, 
by  the  persuasion  of  friends  he  remained  in  London.  To  their 
honor,  the  Dean  and  Chapter  of  St.  Paul's,  knowing  all  the  cir- 
cumstances, offered  him  the  living  of  Cripplegate,  then  vacant ; 
but  Burnet,  being  informed  that  their  first  intention  was  to 
have  offered  it  to  Dr.  Fowler,  generously  declined.  In  1675, 
on  recommendation  of  Lord  Hollis,  he  was  appointed  preacher 
of  the  Rolls  Chapel,  and  soon  after  elected  lecturer  of  St. 
Clement's.  He  soon  made  his  mark,  and  became  popular.  In 
1681  he  sent  forth  the  first  volume  of  the  "History  of  the 
Reformation,"  in  1682  the  second,  and  in  1715  the  third  vol- 
ume. For  this  work,  which  is  still  highly  esteemed,  he  received 
the  thanks  of  both  Houses  of  Parliament.  During  the  trouble- 
some time  that  followed,  he  was  resorted  to  for  advice  by 
persons  of  all  ranks  and  parties.  To  avoid  all  jealousy,  he 
built  himself  a  laboratory  and  studied  chemistry.  Often  con- 
sulted by  the  King,  he  was  offered  the  bishopric  of  Chichester, 
but  with  such  conditions  that  he  indignantly  refused.  Soon 
after,  by  the  machinations  of  his  enemies,  he  was  dismissed 
from  the  preachership  of  the  Rolls. 

On  the  accession  of  James  II.,  having  obtained  leave,  he 
went  to  Paris.  Here  for  a  time  he  lived  in  retirement,  but  soon 
after  made  a  tour  of  Italy.  Innocent  XL,  having  heard  of 
him,  offered  him  a  private  interview,  which,  however,  Burnet 
declined.  Engaging  in  some  religious  controversies,  he  was 
obliged  to  depart,  making  a  journey  through  Switzerland  and 
Germany.  At  Utrecht  he  received  an  invitation  from  the 
Prince  and  Princess  of  Orange,  to  whom  he  had  been  recom- 
mended by  the  Protestant  party  in  England.  From  this  event 
he  became  an  object  of  hatred  to  James  II.,  and,  being  prose- 
cuted for  high  treason,  he,  having  received  intelligence  thereof 
beforehand,  became  a  naturalized  subject  of  Holland  under 
plea  of  marriage  with  Mary  Scott,  his  second  wife.  Thus  pro- 
tected by  Holland,  and  under  the  care  of  William  of  Orange, 
he  labored  for  the  welfare  of  William  and  Mary.  The  former 
he  accompanied  to  England,  and  afterward  was  advanced  to  the 


BISHOP   GILBERT   BURNET.  291 

see  of  Salisbury.  As  a  bishop  he  advocated  moderate  meas- 
ures as  to  Nonjurors  and  Nonconformists.  This  brought  upon 
him  the  enmity  of  many.  The  Earl  of  Shaftesbury  writes 
thus :  "  As  my  Lord  of  Salisbury  has  done  more  than  any  man 
living  for  the  good  and  honor  of  the  Church  of  England  and 
the  Reformed  faith,  so  now  he  suffers  more  than  any  man  from 
the  tongue  and  slander  of  those  ungrateful  Churchmen  who 
may  well  call  them  by  that  single  name  of  distinction,  since 
they  have  thrown  off  all  the  temper  of  the  former  and  all  con- 
cern and  interest  with  the  latter." 

In  1693,  after  the  publication  and  condemnation  of  Blount's 
anonymous  publication,  "  King  William  and  Queen  Mary  Con- 
querors," an  opportunity  was  taken  by  Burnet's  enemies  to 
bring  a  pastoral  letter  of  his  before  the  House  of  Commons. 
It  was  ordered  to  be  burnt  by  the  common  hangman.  His  sec- 
ond wife  died  in  1698.  Having  been  appointed  tutor  to  the 
Duke  of  Gloucester,  and  considering  the  tender  age  of  his  own 
children,  he  married  a  widow,  Mrs.  Berkeley,  daughter  of  Sir 
Richard  Blake.  In  1699  he  published  the  "  Exposition  of  the 
Thirty-nine  Articles,"  a  work  which,  now  esteemed,  for  some 
time  brought  odium  on  the  author.  The  Lord  Shaftesbury 
whom  we  have  quoted  above  praises  this  work  very  highly, 
declaring  it  highly  worthy  of  study.  "  None  can,"  says  he, 
"  better  explain  the  sense  of  the  Church  than  one  who  is  a 
great  pillar  of  the  same."  The  bishop  narrowly  escaped  a 
charge  of  heresy.  This  perhaps  cannot  be  wondered  at  when 
the  temper  of  the  age,  with  its  deep  feelings  mingled  with  sus- 
picions, is  considered. 

He  formed  a  scheme  for  the  augmentation  of  poor  livings, 
which  he  pressed  with  such  success  that  an  Act  of  Parliament 
was  passed  in  the  second  year  of  Queen  Anne  for  the  "  aug- 
mentation of  poor  livings." 

Bishop  Burnet  died  in  1715,  and  was  interred  at  St.  James's, 
Clerkenwell,  in  which  church  a  monument  is  erected  to  his 
memory.  In  considering  the  life  of  Burnet  it  is  necessary  to 
take  into  full  account  the  times  in  which  he  lived  and  wrote. 
It  was  an  age  of  deep  controversy  and  heartfelt  conviction, 


292  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

when  questions  of  the  deepest  moment,  both  in  Church  and 
State,  were  discussed  with  a  warmth  and  earnestness  which  can 
hardly  be  conceived.  With  that  fervor  on  the  one  side  there 
was  mingled  a  laxity  of  morality  on  the  other.  Burnet  is  an 
example  of  one  who,  at  least  in  some  degree,  managed  to  keep 
himself  free  from  many  entanglements;  and  though  at  times 
the  critic  may  be  inclined  to  take  him  to  task,  yet  there  are 
many  traits  in  his  character  which  call  for  admiration  and 
esteem.  He  had  a  deep  attachment  to  his  country  and  Church, 
and  was  desirous  of  working  for  the  benefit  of  both.  Of  the 
many  works  which  he  has  left,  and  which  are  too  numerous 
to  be  specified,  we  may  say  that  "  The  History  of  his  own 
Time  "  is  most  valuable,  giving  a  knowledge  otherwise  unattain- 
able. His  style  is  at  times  too  familiar;  but  these  blemishes 
are  well  counteracted  by  the  fulness  of  his  information,  the  be- 
nevolence of  his  sentiments,  and  the  earnestness  of  his  manner. 
On  the  whole,  his  statements  may  be  received  with  confidence, 
while  his  judgment  is  always  sober  and  sound. 


JOSEPH    ADDISON. 

[BORN  1672.    DIED  1719.] 

author  possessed  of  such  a  comparatively  slight  amount 
of  learning,  and  endowed  with  so  little  decided  genius,  has 
ever  succeeded  in  attaining  the  fame  and  popularity  of  Addi- 
son.  As  a  poet  he  is  hardly  entitled  to  be  placed  side  by  side 
with  Goldsmith,  Johnson,  Gray,  and  others,  whom  no  one  would 
dream  of  placing  in  the  very  first  rank ;  his  dramas  are  scarcely 
worthy  of  even  as  much  praise  as  his  poems ;  as  a  critic  he  is 
found  wanting  in  those  essential  qualities  —  a  knowledge  of  the 
principles  of  art  and  of  the  true  motives  by  which  human  actions 
are  actuated  —  without  which  the  work  of  a  critic  is  without 
value ;  and  as  a  statesman  he  was  a  most  egregious  failure. 


JOSEPH     ADDISON. 


JOSEPH   ADDISON.      •  295 

And  yet  but  few  more  popular  writers  have  ever  lived.  To  what 
then  are  his  fame  and  popularity  as  a  writer  due?  A  careful 
consideration  of  his  life,  of  the  history  of  the  times  in  which  he 
lived,  of  the  state  of  the  literature  of  the  country  at  that  period, 
and  of  the  various  circumstances  under  which  he  wrote,  is  neces- 
sary in  order  to  enable  us  to  arrive  at  a  solution  of  this  problem. 
The  only  son  of  Dean  Addison,  of  Lichfield,  Joseph  Addi- 
son  was  born  at  Milston  on  the  ist  of  March,  1672.  He  was 
educated  at  Amesbury,  Salisbury,  and  at  the  Charter-house. 
In  his  fifteenth  year  he  went  to  Queen's  College,  Oxford, 
whence  he  shortly  afterwards  migrated  to  Magdalen  College, 
where,  through  the  influence  of  Dr.  Lancaster,  who  was  much 
struck  with  some  Latin  verses  of  Addison's  which  accidentally 
fell  into  his  hands,  he  was  in  1689  elected  a  demy,  and  sub- 
sequently became  a  fellow.  In  his  twenty-second  year  he  ad- 
dressed some  complimentary  lines  to  Dryden,  who  in  return 
permitted  him  to  write  a  preface  to  his  translation  of  the  "Geor- 
gics,"  and  complimented  him  in  the  postscript  to  the  translation 
of  the  "^Eneid"  with  perhaps  more  liberality  than  sincerity.  It 
was  at  this  time  the  intention  of  both  his  father  and  himself  that 
he  should  take  orders,  —  a  course,  however,  from  which  he  was 
dissuaded  by  Montague,  then  Secretary  of  State,  who,  having 
procured  for  him  a  pension  of  ^300  a  year,  as  a  reward  for  a 
poem  which  he  addressed  to  King  William,  induced  him  to 
adopt  politics  as  a  profession  in  preference  to  the  Church.  In 
order  to  acquire  a  knowledge  of  French,  with  which  an  intimate 
acquaintance  is  so  essential  to  a  politician,  he  in  1699  proceeded 
to  Blois,  where  for  about  a  twelvemonth  he  applied  himself 
assiduously  to  the  study  of  that  language.  Having  then  suffi- 
ciently mastered  French,  he  in  1700  betook  himself  to  Italy, 
where  he  wrote  his  epistle  to  Lord  Halifax,  —  a  work  which, 
though  it  at  the  time  added  greatly  to  his  renown,  will,  as  Lord 
Macaulay  says,  "  be  hardly  considered  as  in  any  perceptible 
degree  heightening  his  fame."  While  in  Italy,  all  his  prospects 
were  for  the  time  darkened  by  the  death  of  William  III.  The 
Whig  ministers,  Addison's  patrons, —  Manchester,  Halifax,  and 
Somers,  —  went  out  of  office.  Addison  shared  their  fate ;  all 


296  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

his  hopes  of  public  employment  were  for  the  time  at  an  end, 
and  his  pension  was  stopped. 

Being  now  obliged  to  exert  himself  in  order  to  obtain  his  bare 
livelihood,  he  accepted  an  engagement  as  travelling  tutor  to  a 
young  squire,  with  whom  he  visited  the  greater  part  of  Switzer- 
land and  Germany.  It  was  during  this  period  that  he  wrote  his 
treatise  on  medals,  —  a  work  which  more  than  any  other  shows 
his  intimate  knowledge  of  the  Latin  poets,  and  displays  his  want 
of  interest  in  the  work  of  the  Roman  historians  and  orators,  and 
his  comparative  ignorance  of  the  Greek  writers.  Addison's 
affairs  seemed  now  more  hopeless  than  ever,  but  fortune  came 
to  his  rescue.  The  great  battle  of  Blenheim  was  fought  and 
won  by  the  English  troops.  It  was  a  victory  worthy  of  poetic 
celebration,  and  yet  no  poet  could  be  found  equal  to  the  occa- 
sion. Many  poems,  if  they  may  be  so  styled,  were  poured  forth 
in  honor  of  the  event ;  but  their  merits,  or  rather  demerits,  were 
such  as  were  calculated  rather  to  render  the  hero  of  the  occasion 
ludicrous  than  to  shed  any  ray  of  glory  upon  his  victory.  At 
the  suggestion  of  Halifax,  Addison  was  officially  commissioned 
to  write  a  poem  in  celebration  of  the  victory  and  in  honor  of  the 
victor,  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  the  result  of  which  was  the 
publication  of  the  "  Campaign,"  for  which  he  received  a  com- 
missionership  of  appeals  with  a  fairly  liberal  salary.  Two  years 
after,  his  patrons  having  returned  to  office,  he  was  appointed 
Under  Secretary  of  State,  and  in  1809  went  over  to  Ireland 
as  secretary  to  the  Lord  Lieutenant  and  Keeper  of  the  Records. 
It  was  whilst  in  Ireland  that  he  wrote  some  of  the  most  charm- 
ing of  his  contributions  to  the  "  Tatler,"  a  periodical  which  had 
shortly  before  been  started  and  was  then  being  carried  on  by 
his  friend  Steele.  Soon  after  his  return  to  England  he  was  in- 
strumental in  the  production  of  the  "  Spectator"  in  1711  ;  the 
"  Spectator  "  was  followed  by  the  "  Guardian,"  the  "  Guardian  " 
by  the  "  Englishman,"  and  the  "  Englishman  "  in  its  turn  by  the 
"  Freeholder."  In  these  various  periodicals  Addison's  best 
work  appeared,  in  the  form  of  essays.  Indeed,  it  is  by  these 
essays  alone  that  he  at  all  deserves  the  fame  he  has  acquired, 
or  the  place  he  now  holds,  as  a  writer. 


JOSEPH   ADDISON.  297 

In  1716  he  married  the  Dowager  Countess  of  Warwick,  —  a 
union  which  proved  fraught  with  much  unhappiness  to  both 
husband  and  wife,  and  which  contributed  little,  if  anything,  to 
his  advancement.  In  the  following  year  he  was  appointed  Sec- 
retary of  State,  —  an  office  he  was  wholly  unfitted  to  hold,  and 
which  he  was  compelled  to  resign  in  the  spring  of  1718,  a 
liberal  pension  being  granted  him.  He  was  not,  however,  des- 
tined long  to  enjoy  the  pleasure  of  private  life  ;  his  health  grad- 
ually failed  him,  and  asthma,  from  which  he  had  long  suffered, 
increased  in  violence,  and,  being  aggravated  by  dropsy,  broke 
up  his  constitution.  Feeling  that  his  end  was  near,  he  pre- 
pared to  die  in  accordance  with  the  religion  he  had  always 
professed  and  endeavored  to  carry  into  practice.  A  few  hours 
before  he  died  he  sent  for  his  step-son,  the  young  Earl  of  War- 
wick, who  had  fallen  into  dissolute  habits,  and  whom  he  had 
long  earnestly  tried  to  reclaim.  Addressing  him  with  great  ten- 
derness, he  said,  "  I  have  sent  for  you  that  you  may  see  how  a 
Christian  can  die,"  hoping  doubtless  that  such  an  affecting  scene 
would  have  more  effect  than  all  his  previous  admonitions  and 
expostulations.  He  died  on  the  I7th  of  June,  1719,  having  just 
completed  his  forty-seventh  year. 

Having  now  shortly  sketched  the  principal  events  of  his  life, 
we  are  in  a  position  to  consider  the  question  we  before  pro- 
pounded :  To  what  are  Addison's  fame  and  popularity  as  a 
writer  due?  In  the  first  place. he  flourished  in  a  fortunate  hour. 
Dryden  was  no  more,  and  Pope  was  yet  in  embryo.  England 
could  boast  of  no  poet,  of  no  author,  able  to  satisfy  the  growing 
literary  desires  of  the  age.  Education  was  rapidly  increasing, 
more  especially  amongst  the  squires  and  knights,  who  a  gen- 
eration before  were  wholly  devoid  of  even  the  rudiments  of 
learning,  and  accordingly  despised  it.  They  wanted  something 
light,  gay,  entertaining,  and  cheerful ;  anything  deep  and  pon- 
derous, entailing  labor  in  perusal,  and  wanting  in  lively  interest, 
would  have  simply  wearied  them,  and  induced  them  to  relin- 
quish all  endeavors  to  find  amusement  in  literature.  Here, 
then,  was  a  serious  want,  a  great  popular  want,  and  no  one 
but  Addison  able  to  satisfy  it.  He  did  satisfy  this  want,  and 


298  OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

in  a  manner  which  does  equal  credit  to  his  memory  as  a  man 
and  as  an  author.  His  papers  to  the  "  Tatler,"  the  "  Spectator," 
the  "  Guardian,"  the  "  Englishman,"  and  the  "  Freeholder,"  hu- 
morous, witty,  and  gay,  are  such  in  character  and  in  style  as 
pre-eminently  to  suit  the  exigencies  of  the  age  for  which  he 
wrote.  Here,  then,  are  the  first  secrets  of  his  success,  —  he  sup- 
plied a  general  want  and  wrote  for  the  general  public,  and  not  for 
the  learned  and  wise  alone.  But  there  was  yet  another  potent 
reason  which  greatly  contributed  to  his  fame  and  popularity.  It 
was  at  the  time  an  almost  universally  accepted  theory  that  it  was 
impossible  to  write  in  a  style  at  once  pleasing  and  gay  without 
descending  to  coarseness  and  immorality,  that  wit  and  modesty 
in  literature  were  incompatible.  Addison  dispelled  this  unhal- 
lowed idea.  "  He  taught  the  nation  that  the  faith  and  morality 
of  Hall  and  Tillotson  might  be  found  in  company  with  wit 
more  sparkling  than  the  wit  of  Congreve,  and  with  humor 
richer  than  the  humor  of  Vanbrugh." 

Of  Addison's  character  much  has  been  written  with  the  pur- 
pose of  showing  that  he  is  not  entitled  to  be  viewed  in  so  favora- 
ble a  light  as  he  has  been  generally  represented.  Many  serious 
charges,  which  seem  at  first  inconsistent  with  the  true  profes- 
sion of  virtue,  are  brought  and  to  a  certain  extent  proved 
against  him.  But  even  granting  that  all  the  accusations  which 
have  been  made  against  him  were  proved,  we  yet  prefer  to 
regard  his  character  in  a  more  favorable  light  than  his  detrac- 
tors are  willing  to  concede.  In  forming  an  opinion  of  the 
character  of  a  man  we  must  not  base  our  conclusions,  or  indeed 
be  greatly  influenced  in  the  formation  of  our  opinions,  by 
isolated  accusations  which  may  be  proved  against  him,  but 
must  rather  base  our  judgment  upon  a  general  review  of  his 
actions  and  conduct  of  life.  Looking  at  Addison  in  this  light, 
we  find  him  from  the  first  to  the  last  professing  principles  of 
pure  Christianity  and  morality,  continually  endeavoring  to  carry* 
these  principles  in  practice,  and  constantly  and  fearlessly  ad- 
vocating them  in  a  most  forcible  manner.  He  was,  however, 
doubtless  not  endowed  with  that  strength  of  character  which  is 
necessary  to  enable  men  always  to  act  in  accordance  with  their 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON. 


SAMUEL  JOHNSON.  3OI 

principles.  He  was  afflicted  with  a  somewhat  jealous  and  ran- 
corous disposition.  These  infirmities  —  and  who  amongst  us  is 
wholly  free  from  any? : — at  times  overcame  his  endeavor  to 
carry  into  practice  the  principles  which  he  felt  to  be  true,  and 
which  he  used  every  endeavor  to  practise  and  to  inculcate  in 
others,  but  they  are  wholly  insufficient  to  show  that  he  was  a 
hypocrite.  Addison  was  not  a  great  man  in  any  sense  of  the 
word ;  but  when  we  consider  the  whole  course  of  his  life,  we 
cannot  in  fairness  deny  him  the  attributes  of  conscientious 
morality  and  virtue. 

"  He  taught  us  how  to  live  ;  and,  oh  !  too  high 
The  price  of  knowledge,  taught  us  how  to  die." 


SAMUEL   JOHNSON. 

[BORN  SEPT.  18,  1709.    DIED  DEC.  13,  1784.] 

r  I  ^HE  eighteenth  century,  so  seldom  fortunate  in  its  pictures, 
-^-  has  at  least  produced  one  on  which  the  eyes  of  English- 
men must  forever  rest  with  reverence,  —  the  picture  of  Samuel 
Johnson  standing  bareheaded  in  the  market-place  of  Uttoxeter, 
while  the  rain  beat  down  on  that  uncovered  head,  and  the 
bystanders  looked  with  mocking  wonder  on  the  noble,  sorrow- 
ful old  man.  Their  sneers  were  nothing  to  him,  trifles  of  as 
petty  import  as  the  Present,  that  for  one  brief,  heart-stirring 
hour  he  had  forgotten.  His  eyes  and  thoughts  were  fifty  years 
away;  the  rugged  veteran,  gray  and  infirm  and  famous,  was 
recalling  with  a  yearning  and  remorseful  sorrow  how,  half  a 
century  before,  he,  out  of  the  wilful  petulance  of  boyhood,  had 
cruelly  disobeyed  his  father.  Old  Michael  Johnson,  the  strug- 
gling bookseller  of  Lichfield,  whose  custom  it  was  to  go  over 
on  market-days  to  neighboring  towns  and  set  up  his  book-stall 
among  the  other  stalls  that  filled  the  market-place,  had  been 
kept  from  one  such  journey  by  illness.  He  begged  that  his  son 


302  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

would  replace  him,  the  market-town  for  the  day  being  Uttoxe- 
ter.  The  lad  refused.  Pride  and  vanity  and  shyness  were  all 
stirring  within  him  ;  and  he  could  see,  'not  the  sorrowful  face  of 
his  sick  father,  only  the  degradation,  as  he  fancied  it,  of  play- 
ing the  stall-keeper,  and  his  ungainly  figure  exciting  the  ridi- 
cule of  an  Uttoxeter  crowd.  How  many  times  in  after  life  did 
the  recollection  of  that  thankless  stubbornness  sting  in  upon 
him,  "  sharper  than  a  serpent's  tooth,"  bitter  as  is  always  the 
memory  of  ingratitude  !  He  could  not  atone  for  it ;  the  grave 
lay  between  him  and  his  father  and  prevented  all  atonement ; 
but  at  least  he  would  do  his  best  to  prove  by  tears  and  prayers 
and  sorrowful  penance  the  depth  of  his  repentance  for  that  sin- 
gle disobedience.  It  reads  with  the  solemnity  of  some  Biblical 
record,  the  story  of  the  aged  writer,  fresh  from  the  applause 
and  homage  of  London,  standing  humbly  bareheaded  in  that 
Uttoxeter  market-place,  while  the  rain  fell  and  the  crowd  jeered, 
and  his  earnest,  rugged  spirit  lifted  itself  in  an  imploring  prayer 
that  his  Heavenly  Father  and  his  earthly  would  both  forgive 
him  that  boyish  trespass.  English  biography  has  not  such 
another  scene. 

An  uncouth,  repellent  exterior,  under  which  emotions  of  the 
deepest  and  truest  tenderness  rested  in  living  freshness,  ready, 
at  the  summons  of  great  joys  or  sorrows,  to  burst  forth,  as 
water  leaped  from  the  rock  beneath  the  rod  of  Moses,  —  such 
is  the  aspect  that  distinguishes  Johnson  above  all  great  men 
who  ever  stamped  their  impress  on  a  century,  and  left  it  there 
an  image  over  which  generations  yet  unborn  might  meditate. 
His  history  lives,  though  his  writings  with  few  exceptions  lie 
unread  on  the  dusty  shelves  of  libraries ;  and  lives,  not  only 
because  Boswell  has  recorded  it  in  the  first  of  biographies,  but 
because  its 'character  proves  Johnson  to  have  been  one  of  the 
first  of  men.  His  startling  prejudices  and  despotic  rudeness, 
the  contempt  he  sometimes  felt  and  expressed  for  men  still 
greater  than  himself,  —  these  and  other  unpleasant  traits  kindly 
Time  has  softened  for  us.  They  were  of  the  clay,  not  the 
spirit,  and  may  be  suffered  to  follow  into  oblivion  the  clay  that 
was  once  the  uneasy  prison-house  of  this  kingly  soul.  The  great 


SAMUEL  JOHNSON.  303 

Englishman  himself  remains  to  us,  —  the  man  who,  whether 
starving  in  unfurnished  garrets  or  holding  converse  with  his 
sovereign  in  the  royal  library,  whether  earning  fourpence-half- 
penny  a  day  or  gifted  with  a  sufficient  pension,  was  always 
entirely  earnest  and  noble  and  sincere.  He  had  satire  for  the 
complaints  that  are  born  of  trifles,  for  bitter  misery  the  readiest 
and  most  generous  help.  There  were  many  in  England  at  that 
day  whose  speech  was  filled  with  a  sentimentality  of  which  their 
lives  were  barren,  —  men  that,  like  Sterne,  could  "  whimper 
over  a  dead  ass  and  neglect  a  living  mother,"  There  was  only 
Johnson  who,  finding  lying  in  the  street  at  late  night  a  half- 
dead  outcast,  one  of  the  miserable  class  always  so  hideously 
plentiful  in  London,  could  lift  this  wreck  of  a  woman  with  rug- 
ged tenderness,  bear  the  sick  and  starving  wretch  to  his  own 
house,  and  when  with  much  trouble  and  expense  she  was 
nursed  back  to  health,  seek  to  put  her  into  an  honest  way  of 
living. 

Suffering  as  even  authors  have  seldom  suffered;  he  preserved 
his  heroic  unselfishness  an'd  his  wealth  of  manly  affection  un- 
tarnished through  it  all.  We  picture  him  walking  homeless 
through  the  streets  at  night,  or  sharing  with  Richard  Savage 
the  opportune  shelter  of  some  cellar ;  we  see  the  melancholy, 
indomitable  worker,  roughened  now  by  trials  that  would  have 
broken  down  a  nature  with  any  taint  of  weakness,  as,  having 
waited  day  after  day  in  Chesterfield's  anterooms,  he  turns  for 
the  last  time  from  that  delusive  mansion,  and  shakes  forever 
the  hope  of  patronage  from  his  soul.  And  remembering  how, 
when  his  Dictionary,  the  colossal  result  of  seven  years'  labor, 
had  brought  him  both  fame  and  competence,  he  used  his  good 
fortune  for  the  profit  not  of  himself  but  of  others, — that  out 
of  a  pension  of  three  hundred  pounds  yearly  he  devoted  scarce 
eighty  to  his  own  wants,  —  and  that  his  very  house  was  made 
comfortless  to  him  by  inmates  whom  he  had  received  there  out 
of  the  purest  charity,  —  we  feel  that  Johnson,  with  all  his  grim- 
ness,  had  no  more  of  the  bear  than  the  skin,  and  was  of 
eighteenth-century  Englishmen  the  man  whom,  next  to  Burke, 

it  is  most  possible  to  respect  and  love.     "  He  loved  the  poor  as 
20 


304  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

I  never  saw  any  one  else  love  them,"  was  the  testimony  of  Mrs. 
Thrale.  The  same  strong  powers  of  affection,  held  always  in 
restraint  by  a  rugged  manliness,  are  apparent  in  all  the  actions 
of  his  life.  The  best  test  of  genuine  greatness  is,  perhaps,  the 
conduct  of  a  man  towards  the  women  who  are  bound  to  him  by 
the  dearest  of  ties,  —  towards  mother,  sister,  and  wife.  Tried 
by  this  standard,  the  sterling  metal  of  the  character  of  Johnson 
is  at  once  apparent.  No  man  in  the  whole  history  of  English 
literature  was  more  strangely  married ;  yet  his  painted,  fantas- 
tic, over-dressed,  half-educated  helpmate,  more  than  twenty 
years  the  senior  of  the  man  who  had  wedded  her,  found  him  to 
the  end  of  her  life  the  most  tender  and  forbearing  of  husbands. 
When  he  and  she  had  both  passed  away  into  that  eternity 
where  all  ages  are  equal,  passages  such  as,  "  This  was  dear 
Letty's  book,"  or,  "  This  was  a  prayer  which  dear  Letty  was 
accustomed  to  say,"  were  found  in  books  of  devotion  that  had 
belonged  to  her,  written  there  by  Samuel  Johnson  in  memory 
of  the  wife  who  died  thirty  years  before  him.  At  her  death  he 
wrote  to  his  friend  Dr.  Taylor  a  'letter  which,  said  Taylor, 
"  expressed  grief  in  the  strongest  manner  I  had  ever  read." 
Long,  very  long  afterwards,  the  time  c«me  when  Samuel  John- 
son was  himself  entering  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death, 
never  again  to  emerge  therefrom.  On  the  day  that  was  the 
anniversary  of  his  wife's  death,  he  took  his  diary  and  wrote  in 
it  a  few  words,  as  sorrowful  as  they  are  few.  "  This  is  the  day 
on  which,  in  1752,  dear  Letty  died.  I  have  now  uttered  a 
prayer  of  repentance  and  contrition.  Perhaps  Letty  knows 
that  I  prayed  for  her.  Perhaps  Letty  is  now  praying  for  me. 
God  help  me.  Thou,  God,  art  merciful,  hear  my  prayers  and 
enable  me  to  trust  in  Thee." 

With  that  dying  cry  of  the  sorrowful,  great  heart  we  may 
fitly  close  our  thoughts  of  Johnson.  His  writings  may  pass 
away  from  us,  the  memory  of  such  a  life  can  never  pass.  It 
remains  to  proclaim  to  the  farthest  generations  of  his  country- 
men, "  This  was  a  man  ;  "  to  preach  how  in  sickness,  destitution, 
almost  in  despair,  a  spirit  truly  Titanic  can  still  approve  itself 
sublime. 


THOMAS     GRAY. 


THOMAS   GRAY.  307 


THOMAS    GRAY. 

[BORN  1716.    DIED  1771.] 

TF  England  owes  a  debt  of  gratitude  to  Gray,  it  is  because  he 
•*-  is  the  author  of  two  poems  that  have  sunk  deep  into  the 
nation's  heart.  His  "  Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard  "  and  his 
"  Ode  on  a  Distant  Prospect  of  Eton  College  "  have  had  whole 
generations  of  admirers,  and  will  have  many  more. 

Blessed  with  a  good  education  at  Eton  and  Cambridge,  the 
friend  of  West  and  Horace  Walpole,  conversant  with  the  Latin 
and  Greek  classics,  skilled  in  modern  languages  and  devoted 
to  poetry,  Gray  visited  Florence  under  the  most  favorable  aus- 
pices, and  prolonged  his  journey  to  Rome,  Naples,  and  Her- 
culaneum.  There  he  began  a  Latin  poem  on  the  Principles 
of  Thought ;  but  it  is  well  for  us  that  he  broke  with  Horace 
Walpole,  and  returned  to  his  native  country  to  cultivate  his 
genius  for  English  verse. 

In  view  of  the  marvellous  rapidity  with  which  famous  poems 
have  been  thrown  off  in  later  days,  it  is  almost  amusing  to 
be  told  that  the  "  Elegy,"  on  which  Gray's  reputation  is  so 
deservedly  founded,  though  commenced  in  1742,  was  not  com- 
pleted till  seven  years  after.  But  whatever  may  have  been  the 
cause  of  the  composition  being  spread  over  so  long  a  period, 
the  result  has  been  commensurate  with  the  labor.  Not  a  line 
in  the  piece  has  missed  its  mark,  or  failed  to  awaken  unfailing 
echoes  of  delight.  To  have  written  it  and  the  Eton  College 
Ode  was  in  his  case  to  have  fulfilled  the  purpose  of  his  ex- 
istence, for  his  studies  in  architecture  and  his  professorship 
of  modern  history  at  Cambridge  are  now  scarcely  remembered. 
What  endures  is  that  lively  picture  of  the  happy  playground 
at  Eton,  where  life  is  all  freshness  and  promise,  where  the 
evils  and  sorrows  to  come  are  mercifully  veiled,  and  youth  is 


308  OUR  GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 

acquiring  strength  to  support  the  labors  and  trials  of  riper  age. 
Gray  wrote  little,  but  what  he  wrote  was  so  good !  He  knew 
how  to  avoid  the  snare  in  which  so  many  are  entrapped,  and 
did  not  overwrite  himself.  Yet  he  read  enormously.  His 
notes  on  Plato  and  Aristophanes  were  edited  by  Mathias.  He 
was  well  versed  for  his  time  in  zoology  and  botany.  He  was 
skilled  in  heraldry  and  a  diligent  antiquarian.  His  correspond- 
ence remains  to  testify  to  his  studies  and  taste,  though  his 
biographer — Mason  —  in  his  mania  for  emendation  has  altered 
Gray's  letters  where  he  deemed  them  capable  of — improve- 
ment. So  Nahum  Tate  improved  Shakspeare,  and  revived 
"King  Lear"  "with  alterations"! 

In  a  few  stanzas  of  the  matchless  "  Elegy  in  a  Country 
Churchyard  "  this  reserved  and  silent  scholar  has  left  us  a  pic- 
ture, applicable  in  many  of  its  features  to  himself,  with  which 
we  are  all  familiar :  — 

"  There  at  the  foot  of  yonder  nodding  beech 
That  wreathes  its  old  fantastic  roots  so  high, 
His  listless  length  at  noontide  would  he  stretch, 
And  pore  upon  the  brook  that  babbles  by." 

In  the  solitude  of  nature  the  fire  of  his  genius  fused  the 
treasures  of  his  mind  into  one  equable  stream  of  golden  verse. 
In  this  beautiful  "  EJegy  "  he  does  what  so  few  can  do,  —  speaks 
well  on  ordinary  topics,  and  is  fresh  and  original  without  ex- 
aggeration or  affectation  of  any  kind.  If  any  one  thinks  he 
can  improve  any  expression  or  epithet  in  it,  let  him  try.  Jewel 
succeeds  jewel  line  after  line,  and  Time  discovers  no  flaw. 
Such  a  poem  is  a  lasting  service  rendered  to  any  country;  and 
poets  when  they  write  in  this  wise  are  social  benefactors  of 
no  mean  account.  Their  influence  is  not  to  be  measured  by 
the  number  of  their  admirers,  but  by  the  quality  of  the  minds 
into  which  their  lessons  and  their  music  sink  deep.  For  the 
persons  who  have  thus  imbibed  the  teaching  of  the  best  poets 
are  really  the  individuals  who  give  tone  to  society  and  help 
most  effectually  to  improve  their  generation. 


ADAM     SMITH. 


ADAM    SMITH. 


ADAM     SMITH. 

[BORN  1723.     DIED  1790.] 

'  I AHE  singularly  uneventful  lives  of  some  very  remarkable 
-*-  men  render  it  an  extremely  difficult  task  to  frame  such 
a  memoir  as  can  possibly  be  made  interesting  to  an  ordinary 
reader.  Everybody  has  heard  of  the  "  Wealth  of  Nations." 
The  book  may  be  seen  on  almost  any  second-hand  book-stall, 
and  possibly  a  few  of  those  who  know  that  it  is  a  celebrated 
book  on  the  subject  of  political  economy  may  have  even  gone 
so  far  as  to  read  it.  But  its  popularity  is  like  that  of  "  Paradise 
Lost,"  or  the  "Iliad,"  or  the  "  Divine  Comedy," — it  is  a  good 
deal  talked  about;  and  as  Voltaire  has  wittily  said,  people 
take  that  as  a  sufficient  excuse  for  not  reading  it.  Unfortu- 
nately for  the  more  particular  sort,  —  persons  who  like  to  know 
something  of  the  personal  character  of  their  author,  and  who 
gather  thereby  a  more  distinct  portraiture,  and  one  capable  of 
being  better  remembered  than  a  mere  eulogy  of  abstract  quali- 
ties,—  the  only  important  biography  of  this  distinguished  writer, 
whose  name  is  almost  a  household  word,  is  the  very  brief  and 
interrupted  account  prefixed  by  Dugald  Stewart  to  the  col- 
lected edition  of  his  writings.  Brief  as  it  is,  it  is  far  too  effusive 
on  the  literary  side  of  the  man  to  be  quite  satisfactory  to  one 
who  is  neither  a  philosopher  nor  a  political  economist.  And 
being  brief,  it  necessarily  omits  many  things  that  would  have 
been  extremely  interesting  to  know  about  so  notable  a 
man.  But  it  is  very  truly  remarked,  though  in  a  somewhat 
different  sense  if  we  recollect  rightly, ,  in  Taylor's  "  Philip 
Van  Artevelde,"  — 

"  The  world  knows  nothing  of  its  greatest  men." 

It  is  a  sentime'nt  certainly  that  may  account  for  our  ignorance 
of  Homer  and  Shakspeare  and  Plato,  and  one  or  two  more ; 


3 12  OUR  GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 

but  it  scarcely  accounts  for  our  ignorance  of  those  who  only 
lived  a  century  ago.  The  story  of  Adam  Smith's  life,  apart 
from  his  studies,  his  lectures,  and  his  books,  is  brief,  because 
the  life  itself  was  almost  entirely  made  up  of  studies  and  lectures 
and  the  making  of  books.  He  was  born  at  Kirkcaldy,  —  "the 
lang  toun," — claimed  in  the  Dark  Ages  as  the  birthplace  of  the 
famous  wizard  Michael  Scot  —  on  the  5th  of  June,  1723.  His 
father,  who  had  been  comptroller  of  customs  in  that  busy  little 
port,  died  some  months  before  he  was  born.  He  was  an  only 
child,  and  consequently  was  brought  up  with  the  greatest  care 
and  tenderness  by  his  mother,  for  whom  he  ever  cherished  a 
most  marked  and  lively  affection.  At  a  proper  age  he  entered 
the  grammar  school  of  Kirkcaldy,  and  remained  there  until 
removed  to  pursue  his  studies  at  the  University  of  Glasgow. 
He  entered  Glasgow  at  fourteen,  and  remained  three  years. 
Being  intended  by  his  fond  mother  for  a  clergyman  of  the 
English  Church,  he  left  the  old  Scottish  university  to  proceed 
to  Oxford,  and  entered  Balliol  College  as  a  Snell  exhibitioner. 
Here  for  seven  years  he  studied  mathematics,  natural  philoso- 
phy, and  the  classical  and  modern  languages ;  but  he  gave  up 
the  idea  of  entering  the  Church.  Indeed,  to  a  man  of  his 
simple  and  earnest  character,  and  taste  for  metaphysical  studies, 
the  Church,  which  should  have  been  his  natural  asylum,  pos- 
sessed at  that  time  few  attractions.  Most  of  its  clergy  were 
cold,  worldly,  selfish  men,  —  preachers,  or  at  least  writers,  of 
stilted  compositions  styled  sermons,  usually  dedicated  to  some 
person  of  quality  on  whose  bounty  they  were  mainly  depen- 
dent; but  as  pastors,  or  even  as  educational  guides  to  the 
young,  the  poor,  and  the  ignorant  generally,  they  were  wofully 
neglectful  and  indifferent.  Besides,  the  illiberal  manner  in 
which  he  felt  himself  treated  while  at  Balliol,  says  a  writer  in 
the  "Gentleman's  Magazine"  for  1790,  drove  him  into  retirement, 
and  retirement  fortified  his  love  of  study.  Perhaps  his  some- 
what ungainly  Northern  manners  suggested  a  certain  kind  of 
rudeness  or  neglect.  His  frequent  absence  of  mind,  too,  was 
a  temptation  which  neither  fellow-students  nor  attendants  could 
resist.  The  first  day  he  dined  at  Balliol  a  servitor,  seeing  him 


ADAM   SMITH.  313 

neglect  his  dinner,  asked  him  to  "  fall  to,  for  he  had  never  seen 
such  a  piece  of  beef  in  Scotland."  The  recollection  of  this  in 
his  prosperous  latter  days,  when  living  in  hospitable  style  at 
Edinburgh,  always  used  to  call  forth  a  smile  whenever  a  similar 
piece  of  beef  was  brought  to  table,  and  would  generally  lead 
to  his  repeating  the  anecdote.  Another  reason  why  he  did 
not  care  to  enter  the  Church  was  that  while  at  Oxford  he  had 
fallen  in  with  the  doctrines  of  some  of  the  French  writers, 
especially  Voltaire,  on  the  subject  of  religion. 

The  idea  of  taking  orders  having  been  finally  abandoned, 
the  next  suggestion  towards  a  profession  —  for  he  had  no  patri- 
mony—  was  as  a  travelling  tutor.  But  though  a  good  scholar 
and  of  unblemished  moral  character,  his  manners  were  not  quite 
what  they  should  be ;  so  for  some  time  this  intention  was  set 
aside,  and  in  1750  he  opened  a  class  for  teaching  rhetoric  in 
Edinburgh.  From  this  he  was  called  in  the  following  year 
to  the  chair  of  logic,  and  shortly  afterwards  to  that  of  moral 
philosophy  in  the  University  of  Glasgow.  Here  his  English 
training  proved  of  essential  service.  Although  inferior  in 
classical  learning  to  his  predecessor,  the  celebrated  Dr.  Hutche- 
son,  yet  in  pronunciation  and  style  he  is  said  to  have  been 
much  thought  of,  as  superior  to  the  usual  standard  of  the 
Scotch  universities.  His  recluse  habits  during  the  seven  years' 
residence  in  Oxford  had  enabled  him  to  master  the  works 
of  the  French  encyclopaedists,  and  he  had  learned  to  think  of 
Hume  "  as  by  far  the  greatest  philosopher  that  the  world  had 
ever  produced."  His  admiration  and  affection  for  Hume  lasted 
throughout  life.  Of  Dr.  Johnson,  his  no  less  equally  distin- 
guished contemporary,  his  opinion  was  not  quite  so  flattering. 
In  one  of  his  lectures  he  thus  refers  to  the  mighty  lexicogra- 
pher :  "  Of  all  writers,  ancient  or  modern,  he  that  keeps  off 
the  greatest  distance  from  common  sense  is  Dr.  Samuel  John- 
son." Of  course  the  amiable  dictionarian  returned  his  opinion 
with  interest.  In  the  "Edinburgh  Review,"  for  October,  1840, 
is  related  an  anecdote  of  the  interview  between  the  paper 
warriors.  "  Some  of  our  friends,"  said  Adam  Smith,  "  were 
anxious  that  we  should  meet,  and  a  party  was  arranged  for  the 


314  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

purpose.  In  the  course  of  the  evening  I  was  seen  entering 
another  society,  and  perhaps  with  a  manner  a  little  confused. 
'  Have  you  met  Dr.  Johnson?'  my  friends  exclaimed.  'Yes,  I 
have.'  '  And  what  passed  between  you  ?  '  '  Immediately  on  my 
being  introduced  he  addressed  me,  "  Dr.  Smith,  how  came  you 
to  say  that  Hume  'was  nearly  the  best  man  you  ever  knew'?" 
'  Because  he  was  so,'  I  answered.  '  Sir,'  he  replied,  '  you  lie.' 
'And  what,'  said  they,  '  was  your  answer?''  For  the  answer 
we  must  refer  to  the  volume  quoted. 

Dr.  Johnson  had  really  said,  "  that  detestable  infidel,  Hume," 
which  of  course  considerably  nettled  his  countryman  and  friend. 
But  then  the  Doctor  was  always  heavy  upon  the  Scotch. 

In  course  of  time  Dr.  Smith's  lectures  became  much  talked 
of  for  their  originality  and  interesting  style,  and  visitors  were 
attracted  to  look  in  whilst  staying  in  the  neighborhood.  Among 
these  was  the  Right  Honorable  Charles  Townshend,  who  had 
married  the  Lady  Dalkeith ;  and  he  at  once  proposed  to  Smith 
that  he  should  resign  his  professorship  and  undertake  the  office 
of  travelling  tutor  to  the  young  Duke  of  Buccleuch.  It  so  hap- 
pened, while  Mr.  Townshend  was  at  Glasgow,  that  the  Doctor, 
who  took  a  lively  interest  in  manufactures,  invited  the  English- 
man to  inspect  the  tanneries.  They  were  standing  on  a  plank 
laid  across  one  of  the  tan-pits,  and  the  Doctor,  talking  warmly 
on  his  favorite  topic,  quite  forgot  the  precarious  nature  of  his 
footing,  and  plunged  headlong  into  the  nauseous  pool.  He 
was  dragged  out,  stripped,  covered  with  blankets,  and  carried ' 
home  in  a  sedan-chair. 

On  his  leaving  the  university  he  summoned  all  the  students 
in  his  classes  together ;  and  as  the  censor  called  out  their  names 
he  returned  their  fees,  saying  that  as  he  had  not  completed  the 
course  he  was  not  entitled  to  the  payment.  He  then  handed 
over  the  manuscript  of  the  lectures  to  one  of  the  elder  students, 
requesting  him  to  complete  the  course.  And  this  was  actually 
done.  As  a  rule  he  would  never  allow  any  notes  to  be  taken 
of  his  lectures,  lest  they  should  be  transcribed  and  published. 

He  travelled  with  the  Duke  two  years,  and  soon  after  his 
return  published  his  "  Inquiry  into  the  Causes  of  the  Wealth  of 


ADAM    SMITH.  315 

Nations,"  which  was  originally  published  in  1766.  The  book 
at  first  was  by  no  means  popular,  which  is  no  wonder,  for  it  is 
not  a  popular  sort  of  book.  It  was  brought  into  notice  by  a 
remark  made  by  Fox  in  the  House  of  Commons.  During  his 
residence  at  Glasgow  Dr.  Smith  published  his  "  Theory  of  Moral 
Sentiments,"  of  which  the  first  edition  appeared  in  1759.  The 
honorary  degree  of  LL.  D.  was  conferred  upon  him  by  the 
university  in  acknowledgment  of  his  distinction  as  a  "professor, 
but  he  never  assumed  the  title  in  private  life.  While  in  Paris, 
he  became  acquainted  with  most  of  the  distinguished  literary 
men  of  the  time.  Among  them  were  D'Alembert,  Helvetius, 
Marmontel,  Necker,  and  Quesnay. 

In  1788,  through  the  influence  of  the  Duke  of  Buccleuch, 
Smith  was  appointed  one  of  the  Commissioners  of  Customs  for 
Scotland,  on  which  he  removed  to  Edinburgh,  where  he  spent 
the  remainder  of  his  life.  His  closing  years  were  passed  in  tran- 
quillity, amid  a  small  circle  of  friends,  who  generally  supped 
with  him  every  Sunday:  His  mother  resided  with  him  until 
her  death  in  1784;  and  her  loss  and  that  of  his  cousin,  who  had 
been  his  housekeeper,  probably  hastened  his  death,  which  took 
place  in  July,  1790. 

The  great  personal  characteristics  of  Dr.  Adam  Smith  were 
his  generosity  and  absence  of  mind.  The  former  has  already 
been  indicated  in  the  manner  in  which  he  returned  the  students' 
fees  on  resigning  his  professorship.  Perhaps  his  slipping  into 
the  tan-pit  was  an  instance  of  the  latter.  But  his  obliviousness 
to  the  most  ordinary  occurrences  which  transpired  around  him 
was  notorious.  It  seems  curious  that  a  man  who  could  write  so 
well  on  practical  matters,  and  could -handle  the  question  of 
finances  in  so  masterly  a  manner,  should  himself  have  been  a 
most  unpractical  man.  His  friend  and  biographer,  Dugald 
Stewart,  says,  "  He  was  certainly  not  fitted  for  the  general  com- 
merce of  the  world  or  for  the  business  of  active  life."  His 
acts  of  private  charity  far  exceeded  what  might  have  been  sup- 
posed to  be  the  extent  of  his  means.  His  integrity  and  truthful- 
ness were  without  a  stain.  Indeed,  the  only  serious  blemish  in 
his  truly  excellent  and  upright  life  was  his  avowed  participation 


316  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

in  the  religious  opinions  of  his  friend  David  Hume,  for  which 
Dr.  Johnson  was  so  angry  with  him. 

The  work  by  which  he  is  best  known,  "  An  Inquiry  into  the 
Nature  and  Causes  of  the  Wealth  of  Nations,"  has  been  fre- 
quently reprinted.  The  best  edition  is  that  of  M'Culloch.  It 
overthrew  the  errors  of  the  mercantile  theory,  that  money  was 
wealth ;  those  of  the  agricultural  theory,  that  land  was  the  only 
source  of-  wealth ;  and  established  the  principle  that  the  true 
source  of  wealth  was  labor.  He  shows,  in  opposition  to  the 
opinions  popular  among  merchants,  politicians,  and  even  states- 
men in  his  own  time,  that  wealth  does  not  consist  in  the  abun- 
dance of  gold  and  silver,  but  in  the  abundance  of  the  various 
necessaries,  conveniences,  and  enjoyments  of  life.  His  errors  — 
for  of  course  in  so  extensive  a  work  it  would  be  impossible  to 
escape  error  at  times  —  lean  towards  the  theories  of  the  French 
economists.  For  example,  he  imagines  a  distinction  between  in- 
dividual and  social  or  national  advantage,  and  admits  that  the 
two  do  not  always  coincide.  But  it  is  clear  that  as  the  nation 
is  but  an  aggregate  of  individuals,  the  individual  benefit  must 
be  that  of  the  nation ;  provided,  of  course,  that  the  individual 
benefit  is  not  confined  to  certain  persons  and  withheld  from 
others.  A  complete  criticism  and  analysis  of  this  celebrated 
and  valuable  work  may  be  found  in  M'Culloch's  "  Introductory 
Discourse;"  and  the  best  way  to  read  it  will  be  under  the  guid- 
ance of  that  able  and  clear-headed  expositor  and  commentator. 
Our  business  now  is  as  much  with  the  man  as  with  the  author, 
though  his  world-wide  reputation  is  due  to  his  books ;  and,  as  a 
man,  we  know  that  he  had  the  utmost  and  most  outspoken  con- 
tempt for  whatever  was  malicious,  hypocritical,  or  mean.  As  a 
writer  he  labored  incessantly  to  promote  the  best  interests  of 
mankind. 


OLIVER     GOLDSMITH. 


OLIVER    GOLDSMITH.  319 


OLIVER   GOLDSMITH. 

[BORN  1728.     DIED  1774.] 

HIGH  among  the  literary  celebrities  of  the  last  century 
stands  forth  the  name  of  Oliver  Goldsmith.  The  subject 
of  the  present  sketch  was  born  on  the  29th  of  November,  1728, 
the  second  son  of  a  poor  Irish  curate,  whose  character  he  has 
so  affectionately  and  graphically  described  in  his  "  Deserted 
Village."  The  rudiments  of  his  education  were  received  from 
an  old  soldier,  who  had  been  a  quartermaster  in  the  wars  of 
Queen  Anne,  and  who  kept  a  humble  school  in  the  village 
of  which'  Oliver's  father  was  minister.  The  character  of  this 
eccentric  worthy,  depicted  in  the  "  Deserted  Village,"  is  unri- 
valled, and  is  perhaps  the  finest  thing  of  the  kind  that  Goldsmith 
has  left  behind  him.  The  old  soldier,  from  all  accounts,  appears 
to  have  been  a  man  of  considerable  ability,  teeming  with  humor, 
and  possessed  of  peculiar  talents  in  relating  romantic  adven- 
tures and  amusing  anecdotes.  To  the  latter  circumstance  some 
persons  attribute  the  predilection  which  his  pupil  exhibited  in 
later  years  for  a  wandering  and  unsettled  life.  As  a  child  Gold- 
smith is  reported  to  have  been  a  general  butt  of  ridicule  for  his 
ugliness  and  supposed  stupidity ;  however,  as  regards  the  latter 
reproach,  he  could  not  have  suffered  long,  having  already  at 
a  childish  age  vindicated  his  intellectual  place  by  the  verses 
which  opened  to  him  an  academic  destination. 

From  the  village  school  Goldsmith  was  transferred  to  an 
academy  at  Elphin,  where,  however,  he  did  not  continue  long. 
Some  relations  of  his  uncle,  convinced  of  the  lad's  abilities  and 
being  aware  of  his  parents'  small  means,  raised  a  subscription 
among  themselves,  and  resolved  to  provide  him'  with  a  liberal 
education.  In  furtherance  of  this  plan  he  was  sent  to  a  school 
21 


320  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

at  Athlone,  and  afterwards  to  Edgevvorthstown,  in  Longford, 
the  principal  of  this  seminary  being  the  Rev.  Patrick  Hughes, 
to  whom,  as  Goldsmith  himself  confesses,  he  was  indebted  for 
much  valuable  instruction.  At  the  age  of  sixteen,  after  hav- 
ing completed  the  usual  curriculum  of  study,  he  was  admitted 
a  sizar  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin.  His  troubles  now  com- 
menced. The  tutor  under  whose  care  he  was  placed  was  a 
Mr.  Wilder,  a  man  noted  for  his  harshness,  rigid  discipline,  and 
violent  passion,  totally  unfitted  for  the  charge  of  such  a  pupil 
as  Goldsmith  proved.  The  following  anecdote  is  given  as 
showing  the  relations  which  existed  between  them.  Oliver, 
who  was  always  fond  of  a  little  conviviality,  had  invited  a  num- 
ber of  persons  of  both  sexes  to  be  present  at  a  dance  and  sup- 
per in  his  chambers.  Wilder,  either  incensed  by  this  breach 
of  discipline  or  roused  by  some  other  provocation,  rushed  into 
the  room  where  the  assembled  revellers  were  enjoying  them- 
selves, struck  Goldsmith  before  all  his  guests,  whom  he  drove 
from  the  college  without  ceremony  or  apology.  Oliver,  exas- 
perated by  this  treatment,  in  a  violent  passion,  pawned  all  his 
books,  fled  from  Dublin  to  Cork,  whence,  having  spent  all  his 
money,  he  proceeded  on  a  rambling  tour  through  the  country. 
At  last,  convinced  of  his  folly  in  continuing  this  kind  of  life,  he 
made  his  condition  known  to  his  family.  In  the  meantime,  a 
reconciliation  with  Wilder  having  been  effected  through  the 
influence  of  his  elder  brother,  Goldsmith  returned  to  the  uni- 
versity, where  he  continued  to  reside  until  he  obtained  the 
degree  of  B.  A.  About  this  period  he  was  strongly  pressed  to 
enter  the  Church,  which  he  stoutly  refused  to  do ;  but,  being 
without  resources,  accepted  the  post  of  tutor  in  a  private 
family.  Having  saved  about  £30  in  this  occupation,  Goldsmith 
bought  a  horse,  and  proceeded  on  another  of  his  wild  rambles. 
However,  in  about  six  weeks'  time,  after  having  gone  through 
the  most  ludicrous  adventures,  he  appeared  at  his  mother's 
house,  mounted  on  a  most  wretched  little  pony,  and  without  a 
halfpenny  in  his  pocket.  The  following  is  one  among  many 
anecdotes  which  are  related  of  his  generosity  and  kindness  of 
heart  during  this  tour :  — 


OLIVER   GOLDSMITH.  321 

"  Recollecting  that  one  of  his  college  friends,  who  had  often  pressed 
him  to  spend  a  summer  at  his  house,  lived  on  the  road  not  far  from 
Cork,  he  determined  to  pay  him  a  visit,  and  had  no  doubt  of  obtaining 
all  the  assistance  he  wanted.  On  the  way  to  his  friend's  house  he  met 
with  a  poor  woman,  who  implored  relief  for  herself  and  eight  children, 
their  father  having  been  seized  for  rent  and  thrown  into  jail.  Ever 
alive  to  the  feelings  of  humanity,  Oliver  gave  the  woman  all  that 
remained  of  his  little  stock,  and  trusted  his  own  necessities  to  the 
generosity  of  his  dear  friend." 

Goldsmith's  father  having  died  soon  after,  his  uncle,  the  Rev. 
T.  Contarine,  sent  his  nephew  up  to  London  to  qualify  himself 
for  the  legal  profession,  a  purpose  which  Oliver  himself  thwarted 
by  gambling  away  all  his  money  and  returning  home  penni- 
less. After  this  he  proceeded  to  Edinburgh  to  prepare  for 
the  medical  profession,  and  having  passed  two  years  in  the  me- 
tropolis of  Scotland  repaired  to  Leyden,  intending  to  complete 
his  studies.  Now  ensued  a  series  of  the  most  romantic  adven- 
tures and  strange  vicissitudes  that  ever  man  has  undergone. 
However,  as  he  himself  has  related  them  in  his  "  Philosophic 
Vagabond,"  it  is  not  necessary  to  enter  here  into  any  details 
concerning  this  period  of  his  life.  Suffice  it  to  say,  he  at  length 
obtained  a  medical  degree  at  Padua,  and  returned  to  England 
in  the  year  1756.  Arrived  in  London,  he  was  for  sometime  a 
chemist's  assistant,  then  an  usher  in  an  academy  at  Peckham,  — 
a  post  of  great  wretchedness  and  the  most  painful  drudgery. 
However,  a  change  for  the  better  took  place  in  Goldsmith's 
fortunes  about  this  time.  He  was  enabled,  through  the  gen- 
erosity of  an  old  college  friend,  to  set  up  in  practice  as  a 
physician ;  but  he  soon  gave  this  up,  and,  after  failing  to  obtain 
an  appointment  as  a  hospital  master,  threw  up  the  medical 
profession  in  disgust,  and  henceforth  devoted  himself  entirely 
to  literature.  The  extreme  ease  with  whic'h  he  wrote,  the  ver- 
satility of  his  talents,  his  varied  and  curious  information,  all 
combined  to  render  his  services  most  valuable  to  the  London 
publishers.  Hence  his  income  must  at  times  have  been  con- 
siderable ;  but  his  reckless  generosity  and  his  improvidence 
rendered  him  entirely  incapable  of  husbanding  his  resources  or 


322  OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

of  providing  for  the  future.  Thence  his  difficulties,  —  one  day 
dressed  like  a  fine  gentleman,  the  next  day  in  rags* 

After  being  engaged  for  some  time  in  hack  work  for  the 
periodicals,  he  appeared  as  an  author  on  his  own  account,  and 
in  1761  was  written  the  "Vicar  of  Wakefield," — "the  finest 
model  of  fictitious  composition  on  which  the  human  mind  was 
ever  employed,"  although  it  was  not  published  till  five  years 
afterwards,  so  little  was  it  appreciated  by  its  purchaser.  The 
singular  circumstances  under  which  this  inimitable  novel  was 
composed,  and  sold  by  Dr.  Johnson  for  £60,  are  related  in  Bos- 
well's  "  Life  of  Johnson."  "I  received  one  morning,"  Johnson 
long  afterwards  told  Boswell,  "  a  message  from  poor  Goldsmith 
that  he  was  in  great  distress,  and  as  it  was  not  in  his  power  to 
come  to  me,  begging  that  I  would  come  to  him  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible. I  sent  him  a  guinea,  and  promised  to  come  to  him 
directly.  I  accordingly  went  as  soon  as  I  was  dressed,  and 
found  that  his  landlady  had  arrested  him  for  his  rent,  at  which 
he  was  in  a  violent  passion.  I  perceived  that  he  had  already 
changed  my  guinea,  and  had  got  a  bottle  of  Madeira  and  a 
glass  before  him.  I  put  the  cork  into  the  bottle,  desired  he 
would  be  calm,  and  began  to  talk  to  him  of  the  means  by 
which  he  might  be  extricated.  He  then  told  me  that  he  had  a 
novel  ready  for  the  press,  which  he  produced  to  me.  I  looked 
into  it  and  saw  its  merit,  told  the  landlady  I  should  soon  return, 
and,  having  gone  to  a  bookseller,  sold  it  for  .£60.  I  brought 
Goldsmith  the  money,  and  he  discharged  his  rent,  not  without 
rating  his  landlady  in  a  high  tone  for  using  him  so  ill." 

The  year  1766  witnessed  the  production  of  the  "  Traveller,"  a 
delightful  poem,  which  established  the  author's  popularity  and 
smoothed  his  way  to  the  highest  poetical  honors.  Two  or 
three  years  before  this  had  appeared  his  well-known  work,  the 
"  Citizen  of  the  World."  The  "  Traveller "  was  followed  by 
that  pleasing  ballad,  the  "  Hermit,"  and  the  comedy  of  the 
"  Good-natured  Man."  Goldsmith  had  taken  great  pains  in  the 
composition  of  this  play,  and  had  also  ventured  in  it  to  differ 
from  the  popular  taste.  The  kind  of  comedy  most  in  vogue  at 
that  time  was  "  genteel  comedy  "  or  "  sentimental  trash ;  "  and 


OLIVER   GOLDSMITH.  323 

the  theatre  managers  and  critics  had  a  special  horror  of  any- 
thing which  might  be  considered  low  or  too  broadly  farcical. 
Garrick,  whether  on  this  account  or  for  other  reasons,  did  not 
care  about  the  work;   but  at  length,  after  much  delay,  it  was 
given  into  the  hands  of  Colman,  the  Covent  Garden  manager. 
Colman,  too,  appeared  in  no  great  hurry  to  bring  it  before  the 
public,  and  it  was  not  until  the  29th  of  January,  1768,  during 
which  period  Goldsmith  had  been  driven  to  his  alternative  of 
compiling  to  supply  his  immediate  wants,  that  he  had  the  satis- 
faction of  seeing  his  comedy  on  the  boards.     One  can  hardly 
say  satisfaction.     Colman  had  been  diffident  of  its  success  from 
the  very  first;  the  actors  for  the   most  part  were  cool  about 
it ;   the  audience  during  a  great  part  of  its  representation  exhib- 
ited the  most  supreme  indifference.    At  the  famous  scene  of  the 
bailiffs  the  partisans  of  genteel   comedy  in   the  pit  could   no 
longer    restrain    themselves,    and   vented    their   disapproval    in 
hisses  and  cries  of  "  Low !  "  "  Low !  "  but  at  the  fourth  scene 
the  tide  of  popular  favor  turned,  and  roars  of  laughter  were 
heard  from  every  part  of  the  theatre.     Goldsmith,  who  was  in 
the  house  with  Johnson,  Burke,  and  others,  had  all  this  time 
been  suffering  dreadfully.     It  was  club  night;   but  though  he 
went  when  all  was  over  and  seemed  in  riotously  high  spirits,  it 
was  but  make-believe.     "  All  the  while,"  he   said,  telling  the 
story  afterwards  at  a  dinner-table,  "  I  was  undergoing  horrid 
tortures,  and  verily  believe  that  if  I   had   put  a  bit  into  my 
mouth  it  would  have  strangled  me  on  the  spot,  I  was  so  exces- 
sively ill;   but  I  made  more  noise  than  usual  to  cover  all  that, 
and  so  they  never  perceived  my  not  eating,  nor,  I  believe,  at  all 
imagined  to  themselves  the  anguish  of  my  heart.     But  when  all 
were  gone  except  Johnson  here,  I  burst  out  a-crying,  and  even 
swore  that  I  would  never  write  again."     "  All  which,  Doctor," 
said  Johnson,  who  had  been  listening  with  amazement  to  this 
frank  public  confession  of  Goldy,  "  I  thought  had  been  a  secret 
between  you  and  me ;   and  I  am  sure  I  would  not  have  said  a 
word  about  it  for  the  world."     The  comedy  might,  however,  be 
pronounced   a  success.     It  ran   a  due  number  of  nights,  and 
brought  Goldsmith  .£300  or  £400.     Johnson,  indeed,  who  had 


324  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

written  the  prologue,  and  stood  manfully  by  it  all  through, 
declared  that  it  was  the  best  comedy  that  had  been  produced 
since  the  "  Provoked  Husband." 

At.  length,  in  1770,  appeared  his  most  charming  poem,  the 
"  Deserted  Village."  Its  natural  elegance,  simplicity,  and  pa- 
thos won  all  hearts ;  and  the  poet's  genius  and  worth  were  now 
fully  appreciated.  Besides  these  productions,  Goldsmith  wrote 
many  other  works  in  both  prose  and  verse,  all  of  them  distin- 
guished by  that  simplicity  and  easy  flow  which  is  so  charac- 
teristic of  all  his  writings.  In  1773  he  again  appeared  as  a 
dramatic  author  by  bringing  out  his  agreeable  play,  "  She 
Stoops  to  Conquer,"  the  plot  of  which  is  founded  on  an  amus- 
ing adventure  which  the  author  himself  had  while  travelling  in 
Ireland,  when  he  mistook  a  gentleman's  house  for  an  inn. 
Among  our  poet's  last  publications  was  a  "  History  of  the  Earth 
and  Animated  Nature,"  a  work  which  realized  ^850. 

But  now  Goldsmith's  adventures  and  checkered  career  were 
drawing  to  an  end.  He  had  for  some  years  been  suffering 
from  a  constitutional  disease,  induced  by  severe  application. 
Being  also  subject  to  lowness  of  spirits,  he  was  attacked  by  a 
nervous  fever,  of  which  he  died,  April  4,  1774,  at  the  early  age 
of  forty-five.  His  remains  were  interred  in  the  Temple  burial- 
ground,  and  a  marble  monument  was  erected  to  his  memory  in 
Westminster  Abbey,  the  Latin  inscription  on  it  being  written 
by  Dr.  Johnson.  As  we  gather  from  testimony, — 

"  In  person  Goldsmith  was  short,  about  five  feet  five  or  six  inches ; 
strong,  but  not  heavy  in  make ;  rather  fair  in  complexion,  with  brown 
hair.  His  features  were  plain,  but  not  repulsive,  —  certainly  not  so  when 
lighted  up  by  conversation.  His  manners  were  simple,  natural,  and  per- 
haps on  the  whole  unpolished.  He  was  always  cheerful  and  animated, 
entered  with  spirit  into  convivial  society,  to  the  enjoyments  of  which  he 
contributed  largely  by  solidity  of  information  and  the  na'ivete  and  origi- 
nality of  his  character ;  talked  often  without  oremeditation,  and  laughed 
loudly  without  restraint." 

Goldsmith,  indeed,  was  one  whose  character  it  is  impossi- 
ble not  to  love,  even  while  condemning  its  glaring  blemishes. 


WILLIAM     COWPER. 


WILLIAM    COVVPER.  327 

When  he  was  a  man,  and  up  to  the  end  of  his  life,  he  possessed 
much  of  the  simplicity  of  childhood.  Both  as  a  prose  writer 
and  as  a  poet  he  has  won  a  name  which  will  last  as  long  as  the 
English  language  itself. 

The  man  speaks  to  us  of  men  as  men.  He  touches  the 
chords  of  sympathy  which  connect  man  to  his  fellows.  It 
may  be  that  he  is  not  so  grand  as  those  who  have  preceded 
or  succeeded  him ;  but  he  is  domestic,  and  adorns  each  subject 
that  he  has  touched. 


WILLIAM   COWPER. 

[BORN  1731.     DIED  1800.] 

TT  would  be  comparatively  safe  to  hazard  a  guess  that  for 
•*•  every  ten  Englishmen  who  have  read  Pope's  version  of 
Homer's  "  Iliad,"  not  one  has  read  Cowper's  elegant  translation 
of  the  same  epic.  There  is,  however,  no  more  simple  or  certain 
method  by  which  to  demonstrate  the  superiority  of  the  latter 
work,  and  to  indicate  the  kind  of  influence  which  Cowper  ex- 
ercised on  the  poetic  literature  of  this  country,  than  to  quote 
in  comparison  a  passage  from  each  of  these  great  men.  In  the 
eighth  book  of  the  "  Iliad  "  there  is  a  description  of  Night,  which 
in  the  original  Greek  extends  to  five  lines.  Pope's  rendering 
of  this  description  has  been  quoted  ad  nauseam,  as  a  brilliant 
instance  of  grandeur  and  felicity  of  diction.  Sonorous  and 
full  of  color  it  no  doubt  is.  But  sound  is  not  the  only  consid- 
eration in  poetry,  and  the  color  is  glaring  and  false.  This  is 
Pope : — 

"  As  when  the  moon,  refulgent  lamp  of  night, 
O'er  heaven's  clear  azure  spreads  her  sacred  light; 
When  not  a  breath  disturbs  the  deep  serene,  • 
And  not  a  cloud  o'ercasts  the  solemn  scene; 
Around  her  throne  the  vivid  planets  roll, 
And  stars  unnumbered  gild  the  glowing  pole.; 


328  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

O'er  the  dark  trees  a  yellower  verdure  shed, 
And  tipt  with  silver  every  mountain's  head  ; 
Then  shine  the  vales,  the  rocks  in  prospect  rise, 
A  flood  of  glory  bursts  from  all  the  skies  ; 
The  conscious  swains,  rejoicing  in  the  sight, 
Eye  the  blue  vault  and  bless  the  useful  light." 

Here,  indeed,  is  a  description  of  night  such  as  is  not  justified 
by  any  manual  of  astronomy  in  the  world,  and  which  does  the 
greatest  violence  to  the  simple  dignity  of  the  original.  Cow- 
per's  translation  of  the  same  passage  is  as  follows :  — 

"  As  when  around  the  clear  bright  moon  the  stars 
Shine  in  full  splendor,  and  the  winds  are  hushed, 
The  groves,  the  mountain-tops,  the  headland  heights, 
Stand  all  apparent ;  not  a  vapor  streaks 
The  boundless  blue,  but  aether  opened  wide 
All  glitters,  and  the  shepherd's  heart  is  cheered."  l 

No  amount  of  criticism  could  more  satisfactorily  denote  the 
poetic  position  of  Cowper  than  this  comparison.  His  history 
marks  the  commencement  of  a  literary,  reform.  He  led  the  way 
for  the  Wordsworth  of  a  later  time.  Chaste,  refined,  but  for- 
cible, his  style  was  utterly  opposed  to  the  artificial  in  verse. 
About  his  descriptions  there  is  nothing  tawdry,  about  his 
sentiment  nothing  mawkish,  about  his  ethics  nothing  offensive. 
Daphne  and  Chloe  had  been  piped  to  in  neatly  turned  odes. 
Cowper  finds  at  home  a  theme  as  inspiring  as  any  in  the 
classical  dictionaries,  and  his  "  Verses  to  his  Mother's  Picture  " 
will  ever  be  ranked  by  critics  of  taste  as  one  of  the  most  exqui- 
site and  pathetic  compositions  in  the  language.  Other  poets 
found  subjects  for  their  wit  in  topics  and  persons  of  the  hour, 
and  these  ballads  smelt  of  the  coffee-house  and  the  green-room. 

1  This  passage  has  been  translated  by  Tennyson  as  follows  :  — 

"  As  when  in  heaven  the  stars  about  the  moon 
Look  beautiful,  when  all  the  winds  are  laid, 
And  every  height  comes  out,  and  jutting  peak 
And  valley,  and  the  immeasurable  heavens 
Break  open  to  the  highest,  and  all  the  stars 
Shine,  and  the  shepherd  gladdens  in  his  heart." 


WILLIAM    COWPER.  329 

But  the  simple  story  of  John  Gilpin  will  survive  hundreds  of 
the  smartest  satires  that  ever  tickled  the  town. 

William  Cowper  was  born  in  the  year  1731.  His  father 
was  the  Rev.  Dr.  John  Cowper,  a  royal  chaplain  and  rector 
of  Great  Berkhampstead,  in  Hertfordshire,  at  which  place  the 
subject  of  this  biography  saw  the  light.  The  grandfather  of 
the  future  poet  was  a  judge,  and  his  great-uncle  was  a  Lord 
Chancellor,  —  circumstances  which,  no  doubt,  suggested  the  law 
as  the  most  likely  profession  for  William.  Patronage  in  those 
days  was  a  family  virtue  largely  exercised,  and  if  the  author  of 
the  "  Task  "  had  exhibited  any  particular  aptitude  for  his  pro- 
fession he  would,  no  doubt,  have  happened  upon  some  of  the 
prizes  so  eagerly  desired  by  men  of  law.  To  his  early  training 
the  student  must  turn  for  the  cause  of  that  pathos,  chastity,  and 
religion  conspicuous  in  his  compositions.  Young  Cowper's 
early  tutor  was  his  mother.  At  her  knee  he  learned  the  infinite 
beauty  of  a  pure  life;  from  her  lips  he  received  the  first  prin- 
ciples of  morality.  When  he  was  only  six  years  of  age  a 
darkness  fell  upon  his  life.  His  mother  died,  and  a  permanent 
sadness  became  one  of  his  most  noticeable  characteristics. 

Swift  upon  this  terrible  blow  followed  another.  Shortly  after 
his  bereavement  he  was  sent  to  a  boarding-school  in  Market 
Street.  Here  he  was  handed  over  to  the  tender  mercies  of  an 
older  boy,  who  for  two  years  brutally  ill-treated  him,  and  to  the 
sadness  occasioned  by  the  death  of  his  mother  added  a  nervous- 
ness which  became  part  of  his  nature,  and  which  eventually 
developed  into  the  awful  malady  which  first  attacked  him  in 
1763,  and  at  intervals  fell  upon  him  till 

"  God's  finger  touched  him  and  he  slept." 

From  the  Market  Street  academy  and  the  brutal  persecution 
of  a  bully  he  was  in  the  fulness  of  time  transferred  to  West- 
minster School,  and,  having  spent  seven  years  at  that  seat  of 
learning,  he  entered  an  attorney's  office,  willing  to  be  inducted 
into  the  involved  mysteries  of  the  law.  In  this  office  he  had 
for  fellow  apprentice  a  youth  named  Thurlow,  thereafter  Lord 
High  Chancellor  of  England. 


330  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

In  1754  Cowper  was  called  to  the  bar,  became  enamored  of 
life  in  the  Temple,  joined  a  club,  and  eventually  fell  in  love 
with  his  cousin,  —  a  passion  which  had  an  unfortunate  issue, 
and  developed  that  morbid  timidity  wrhich  was  originally  cre- 
ated by  his  early  misfortunes.  The  influence  of  his  legal 
relatives  obtained  for  him  a  clerkship  in  the  Lords ;  but  the 
excessive  timidity  with  which  he  was  afflicted  led  him  to  regard 
with  terror  the  idea  of  his  examination,  and  while  preparing 
himself  for  this  ordeal  the  fatal  curse  of  insanity  fell  upon  him. 
The  "  sweet  bells  jangled  out  of  tune,  and  harsh."  He  was 
confined  in  a  private  madhouse  for  a  year  and  a  half.  His  was  a 
religious  mania,  taking  the  form  of  a  dread  of  death,  —  a  certain 
looking  for  of  judgment.  This  is  the  saddest  episode  in  this  sad 
career.  Four  times  the  awful  shadow  fell  upon  the  ill-fated  man 
at  varying  intervals  and  lasting  for  greater  or  lesser  periods. 

On  his  recovery  from  the  initial  attack  of  insanity  it  was  Cow- 
per's  great  good  fortune  to  become  intimate  with  a  clergyman's 
family  at  Huntingdon.  The  cheerful  influence  of  the  Unwins, 
the  home  feeling  which  he  experienced  in  this  dwelling,  ame- 
liorated his  pains,  and  he  continued  to  reside  with  them  after  the 
demfse  of  the  head  of  the  house.  But  after  a  peaceful  interval 
the  awful  malady  returned,  and  for  three  years  his  reason 
remained  under  a  cloud.  It  was  on  his  recovery  from  this 
attack  that  he  set  himself  to  the  serious  business  of  versifying. 
Those  who,  putting  -a  strained  meaning  upon  the  dictum  ,of 
Horace  —  "  poeta  nascitur  non  fit" — would  have  the  true  poet 
utter  poems  in  his  teens,  would  no  doubt  be  inclined  to  sneer  at 
the  bard  who  commenced  his  profession  at  the  age  of  fifty. 
The  precocious  Pope,  we  know,  at  the  age  of  twelve  philosoph- 
ically warbled,  — 

"  Happy  the  man  whose  wish  and  care 
A  few  paternal  acres  bound." 

But  the  spirit  of  the  child  was  in  Cowper,  and  his  composi- 
tions are  as  perfect  as  if  he  had  spent  a  lengthened  apprentice- 
ship to  the  art.  His  first  efforts  were  recognized  by  no  less 
an  authority  than  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson,  and  there  was  nothing 
now  for  it  but  to  become  poet  by  profession.  But  the  terrible 


WILLIAM    COWPER.  331 

disorder  again  asserted  itself,  and,  tended  by  kind  friends,  the 
old  man's  spirit  was  released  on  the  2$th  of  April,   1800. 

Any  exhaustive  description  of  his  works  would  be  out  of 
place  here.  His  satires,  "  Truth,"  "  Table  Talk,"  "  Expostula- 
tion," and  other  poems  were  chiefly  composed  in  pentameter 
rhymes.  His  famous  work,  the  "  Task,"  was  suggested  to  him 
by  Lady  Austin,  and  will  forever  remain  a  monument  of  his 
power.  This  was  followed  by  the  "  Garden,"  the  "  Winter 
Evening,"  the  "  Winter  Morning  Walk,"  the  "  Winter  Walk  at 
Noon,"  compositions  which  for  accuracy  of  description  and 
daintiness  of  touch  are  quite  without  rivals.  With  the  "  Task  " 
was  published  "  Tirocinium,"  a  poem  in  which  the  iniquities  of 
public  schools  are  set  forth.  In  1791  appeared  the  author's 
translation  of  Homer;  and  a  posthumous  little  poem  called 
the  "  Castaway"  makes  the  sum  of  his  contributions  to  English 
literature,  which  he  greatly  enriched. 

Although  the  service  rendered  by  Cowper  to  English  litera- 
ture was  great  and  peculiar,  it  is  not  altogether  owing  to  his 
literary  labors  that  he  is  included  in  this  gallery  of  benefactors. 
He  was  an  active  philanthropist.  His  influence  was  naturally 
great  among  the  more  seriously  minded  of  his  countrymen. 
Where  there  were  peaceful,  godly  families,  charitably  disposed, 
and  taking  part  in  movements  of  social  reform,  by  those  fami- 
lies he  was  honored  as  the  favorite  bard.  This  influence,  acci- 
dentally acquired  it  may  be,  was  thrown  by  the  poet  into  the 
great  cause  of  humanity.  It  was  he  who  sang  the  wrongs  of 
the  slave ;  and  those  who  enthusiastically  supported  the  efforts 
of  Wilberforce  found  adequate  expression  in  the  polished  verse 
of  Cowper.  Any  estimate  of  Cawper,  therefore,  which  confines 
itself  to  literary  criticism  is  necessarily  inadequate.  An  earnest 
and  indefatigable  lover  of  his  species,  he  gave  his  moral  sup- 
port to  every  institution  which  had  for  its  object  the  elevation 
of  the  masses,  the  suppression  of  wrong,  or  the  amelioration  of 
pain.  When  he  sang  to  "  charity,"  he  celebrated  that  which 
was  the  chief  component  of  his  own  nature. 

"  Who  seeks  to  praise  them,  and  to  make  them  known 
To  other  hearts,  must  have  them  in  his  own." 


332  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

His  works  are  a  reflex  of  all  that  is  best  in  man's  nature. 
His  philosophy  is  that  of  a  Christian  philanthropist. 

William  Cowper  must  ever  be  recognized  as  one  of  the  most 
notable  figures  of  his  time,  whether  we  have  regard  to  the  ex- 
tent of  his  influence,  the  purity  of  his  mind,  the  singularity  of 
his  misfortune,  or  the  quality  of  his  genius. 


HANNAH    MORE. 

[BORN  1745.    DIED  1833.] 

A  LTHOUGH  the  present  century  has  been  remarkable  for 
•**  the  number  of  women  who  have  joined  the  band  of  those 
whose  lives  are  spent  in  efforts  to  ameliorate  the  condition  of 
their  fellow  creatures,  not  one  has  arisen  whose  work  and  influ- 
ence can  be  said  to  have  eclipsed  the  name  of  Hannah  More,  — 
a  name  which  still  remains  a  household  word,  even  with  those 
who  take  but  little  interest  in  the  works  of  charity  and  benevo- 
lence which  have  made  that  name  so  familiar. 

The  youngest  but  one  of  five  daughters,  Hannah  More  was 
born  at  Stapleton,  near  Bristol,  in  1745.  Her  father  a  school- 
master, and  her  sisters  also  conducting  a  school,  she  acquired 
her  education  under  home  influence ;  and  so  early  did  she 
attain  extraordinary  proficiency  in  her  studies,  that  her  father, 
as  he  expressed  himself,  became  frightened  at  his  own  success. 
At  sixteen  years  of  age  she  attracted  the  notice  of  Mr.  Sheri- 
dan, who  much  admired  the  dawning  and  budding  genius  of 
the  talented  and  amiable  girl.  It  was  at  this  time  also  that  she 
commenced  her  career  as  an  authoress;  and  so  well  received 
and  appreciated  were  her  literary  productions,  that  Dr.  John- 
son, on  her  introduction  to  him  a  few  years  later,  accosted  her 
by  repeating  a  verse  from  a  Morning  Hymn  of  her  own  writing. 
About  this  time  her  tender  and  delicate  mind  received  a  shock 


HANNAH     MORE. 


HANNAH    MORE.  335 

which  it  was  feared  would  imbitter  the  future  course  of  her 
life;  but  fortunately  this  did  not  happen.  A  gentleman  who 
was  in  every  way  worthy  of  her  had  gained  her  affections  and 
the  promise  of  her  hand.  The  marriage  day  was  fixed,  but  for 
some  reasons  which  have  never  been  explained  the  gentleman 
receded  from  his  promise.  It  is  but  fair,  however,  to  state  that 
he  subsequently  renewed  his  offer,  and  on  being  refused  made 
all  the  reparation  in  his  power  by  securing  to  her  (contrary  to 
her  wishes  and  without  her  knowledge  at  the  time)  an  annual 
sum  sufficient  to  enable  her  to  devote  herself  to  literary 
pursuits. 

At  the  house  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  an  early  friend,  she 
became  acquainted  with  all  the  leading  and  celebrated  charac- 
ters of  the  day,  and  by  these  her  talents  were  duly  appreciated ; 
but  applause  and  admiration  caused  no  change  in  the  natural 
simplicity  of  her  manners.  She  still  retained  her  usual  amia- 
bility, —  a  quality  which  had  been  from  childhood  the  most 
noticeable  feature  in  her  character. 

The  unexpected  death  of  Garrick,  with  whom  and  Mrs. 
Garrick  she  passed  much  of  her  time  when  in  London,  made 
such  an  impression  upon  her  mind  that  Hannah  More's  better 
feelings  were  aroused,  and  she  determined  thenceforward  to 
devote  to  her  Maker's  service  the  splendid  talents  with  which 
He  had  endowed  her. 

Her  Essays  soon  after  made  their  appearance,  and  several 
poems  quickly  succeeded,  all  of  them  attracting  general  atten- 
tion. The  genuine  characteristics  of  her  mind  began  now  to 
display  themselves,  and,  wearied  with  scenes  of  gayety,  she 
longed  for  the  tranquillity  of  retirement ;  and  with  this  view  she 
removed  to  a  residence  near  Bristol,  spending  only  a  portion  of 
the  year  in  London. 

From  this  retirement  she  sent  forth  several  works  having  for 
their  object  the  improvement  in  the  manners  and  conduct  of 
those  in  high  places.  That  entitled  "  An  Estimate  of  the 
Religion  of  the  Fashionable  World "  produced  a  very  great 
effect.  In  it  she  has  expatiated  in  a  very  free  manner  on 
the  prevailing  corruptions,  the  absence  of  religion  from  the 


336  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

education  of  the  higher  classes,  and  has  shown  how  much  the 
conduct  and  manners  of  the  poorer  classes  are  affected  by  the 
example  of  those  above  them. 

In  1789  Hannah  More's  sisters  retired  from  the  school  they 
had  so  long  conducted,  and  for  the  remainder  of  their  lives 
devoted  themselves  and  their  means  to  furthering  the  efforts  of 
their  talented  sister  in  establishing  schools  for  the  poor  in  the 
neighborhood  of  their  home.  The  deplorable  ignorance  and 
depravity  of  the  poor  at  that  time  we  can  now  scarcely  realize, 
neither  can  we  understand  that,  in  their  first  attempts  to  estab- 
lish a  school,  these  ladies  should  have  met  with  resistance  from 
the  wealthier  portion  of  the  community.  The  first  school  was 
opened  at  Cheddar;  and  so  successful  was  it  that  Mrs.  More 
was  encouraged  to  set  up  others  'in  the  neighborhood,  and 
many  were  established,  some  of  them  at  a  considerable  dis- 
tance from  her  residence.  The  schools,  and  the  various  clubs 
which  were  established  in  connection  with  them  in  the  different 
villages,  were  continually  visited  by  Hannah  More  and  sisters ; 
and  such  were  the  fruits  of  their  labors,  that  even  those  who 
had  been  most  bitter  in  their  persecution  were  fain  to  admit 
that  a  reformation  had  been  effected  in  a  district  previously 
notorious  for  its  almost  heathenish  degradation  and  vice. 

Notwithstanding  the  time  and  attention  which  this  work 
entailed  upon  her,  Hannah  More  still  continued  her  literary 
labors.  To  counteract  the  revolutionary  principles  which  were 
spreading  amongst  the  lower  classes  towards  the  close  of  the 
last  century,  a  series  of  tracts  were  written  by  her,  notably  a 
little  work  entitled  "  Village  Politics."  This,  and  others  of  sim- 
ilar import  were  gladly  received,  and  the  Government  of  the 
day  distributed  thousands  of  copies  throughout  the  country. 

It  is  impossible  here  to  enumerate  the  many  works  which 
proceeded  from  her  pen ;  but  there  is  one  which,  although  of 
a  different  nature  from  her  usual  productions,  will  always  be 
associated  with  her  name.  This  is  entitled  "  Caelebs  in  Search 
of  a'  Wife."  So  extraordinary  was  the  popularity  of  this  work, 
that  eleven  editions  passed  through  the  press  within  nine 
months  after  its  first  publication. 


MARIA    EDGEWQRTH. 


MARIA    EDGEWORTH.  339 

From  her  writings  Hannah  More  obtained- a  considerable  in- 
come, but  all  was  devoted  to  the  charitable  work  which  she 
had  undertaken;  indeed,  her  beneficence  was  such,  that  some 
few  years  before  her  death  her  means  were  so  reduced  that  it 
was  necessary  for  her  to  dispose  of  her  little  estate,  known  as 
Barley  Wood.  To  do  this  was  a  great  trial,  as  her  home  there 
had  become  endeared  to  her  by  the  remembrance  of  past 
scenes.  The  death-place  of  all  her  sisters,  it  had  been  her 
wish  that  in  it  she  also  might  end  her  days. 

Her  health,  which  had  long  been  precarious,  began  soon 
after  to  fail.  A  year  before  her  death  her  faculties  also  became 
dimmed,  and  at  Clifton,  on  the  7th  of  September,  1833,  she 
quietly  and  calmly  breathed  her  last. 

Mrs.  More,  who  was  in  her  eighty-ninth  year  when  she  died, 
must  be  acknowledged  as  one  of  the  most  illustrious  of  Eng- 
lishwomen. To  splendid  talents  were  united  excellent  sense, 
and  a  piety  which  showed  its  genuine  nature  in  the  universal 
beneficence  which  characterized  her  useful  life.  Prayer  was 
with  her  to  the  last ;  and  when  her  memory  had  failed  her  in 
other  respects,  she  could  remember  and  frequently  repeated 
portions  of  Scripture,  and  particularly  those  which  had  sus- 
tained her  during  her  long  and  meritorious  life. 


MARIA    EDGEWORTH. 

[BORN  1767.    DIED  1849.] 

AMONG  those  women  whose  works  have  gained  for  them  a 
position  in  the  literary  annals  of  their  country,  and  who 
by  the  purity  of  their  writings  have  contributed  much  to  the 
moral  and  intellectual  well-being  of  their  readers,  the  name  of 
Maria  Edgeworth  stands  prominently  forth. 

This  gifted  lady  was  the  daughter,  by  his  first  wife,  of  Rich- 
ard Lovell  Edgeworth,  of  Edgeworthstown,  County  Longford, 


346  OUR  GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 

Ireland.  She  was  born  at  Hare  Hatch,  Berkshire,  in  the  year 
1767.  In  1782,  when  Maria  was  about  fifteen  years  old,  the 
family  returned  to  Ireland,  where,  with  the  exception  of  a  few 
occasional  visits  to  England,  Scotland,  and  France,  she  resided 
for  the  remainder  of  her  long  and  useful  life.  Her  education 
was  personally  conducted  by  her  father,  who  enthusiastically 
devoted  himself  to  the  intellectual  improvement  of  all  his  chil- 
dren. The  neighborhood  of  Edgeworthstown  did  not  afford 
much  congenial  society,  the  only  persons  they  visited  being  the 
Earl  of  Longford,  at  Pakenham  Hall,  the  Earl  of  Granard,  at 
Castle  Forbes,  and  a  Mr.  Brookes.  Pakenham  Hall  was  twelve 
miles  distant,  with,  as  she  herself  informs  us,  "  a  Serbonian  bog 
between,  an  awkward  ferry,  and  a  country  so  forlorn  with  yel- 
low woods  that  it  was  aptly  called  by  Mrs.  Greville  '  the  yellow 
dwarfs  country.'  " 

Miss  Edgeworth  quickly  displayed  signs  of  unusual  genius, 
and  at  an  early  age  was  selected  by  her  father  as  his  business 
factotum,  while  his  office  of  magistrate  enabled  her  to  obtain 
great  insight  into  the  native  character,  and  to  study  more  closely 
the  peasant  life  around  her. 

In  most  of  her  literary  productions  she  had  the  advantage  of 
her  father's  criticism.  He  was  accustomed  to  observe,  "  It  is 
my  business  to  cut  and  correct;  yours  to  write  on." 

The  first  effort  of  her  pen,  entitled  "  Essays  on  Practical  Edu- 
cation," was  published  in  1798.  This  work  was  the  joint  pro- 
duction of  father  and  daughter.  In  1801  there  followed  "  Castle 
Rackrent,"  by  which  her  fame  as  a  national  novelist  was  firmly 
established.  The  book  is  distinguished  throughout  for  rollick- 
ing Irish  humor,  sound  sense,  and  powerful  delineations  of 
character.  In  it  we  find  Sir  Condy  lamenting  that  "  he  was  very 
ill-used  by  the  Government  about  a  place  which  had  been  prom- 
ised him,  but  never  given,  after  his  supporting  them  against  his 
conscience  most  honorably." 

"Belinda"  and  the  "Essay  on  Irish  Bulls"  appeared  soon 
after.  The  latter  was  written  with  the  object  of  making  English 
readers  familiar  with  Irish  humor  and  pathos.  In  this  work 
also  she  had  the  assistance  of  her  father's  pen.  Indeed,  it  is  so 


MARIA  EDGEWORTH.  341 

evident  that  two  minds  were  employed  in  its  production  that 
Miss  Edgeworth,  in  writing  her  father's  memoirs,  confesses  her 
inability  to  distinguish  which  were  his,  but  adds  that  passages 
in  which  there  are  allusions  to  or  quotations  from  the  clas- 
sics must  be  his,  as  she  was  "  totally  ignorant  of  the  learned 
languages." 

From  1803  to  1806  she  gave  to  the  world  "  Belinda,"  "  Popu- 
lar Tales,"  and  "  Leonora,"  which  has  a  rather  painful  plot. 

The  first  series  of  "  Fashionable  Tales"  appeared  in  1809, 
and  were  complete  in  1812.  These  .included  "Ennui,"  the 
"Dun,"  "Manoeuvring,"  "  Almeria,"  "Vivian,"  the  "Absentee," 
"  Madame  de  Fleury,"  and  "  Emilie  de  Coulanges."  Among 
the  best  and  most  successful  of  the  tales  were  "  Ennui,"  and  the 
"  Absentee." 

"  Ennui "  is  a  most  powerfully  written  novel.  None  other 
than  a  master  hand  could  have  portrayed  such  characters  as 
"  M'Leod,  the  cool  and  faithful  Scotch  agent,  witty  Lady  Geral- 
dine,  Christy,  the  blacksmith,  Ellinor,  the  Irish  foster  nurse, 
who  on  one  occasion  remarked  that  '  if  it  pleased  God  she 
would  like  to  die  on  Christmas  day  of  all  days,  because  the 
gates  of  heaven  they  say  are  open  all  that  day,  and  who  knows 
but  a  body  might  slip  in  unknownst  ? ' ' 

In  the  "Dun"  is  depicted,  almost  too  painfully,  the  miseries 
which  the  poor  suffer  from  their  inability  to  obtain  the  money 
justly  their  due.  The  chief  figure  in  "  Manoeuvring  "  is  Mrs. 
Beaumont,  a  clever  scheming  woman  who  attempts  to  marry  her 
two  children  against  their  inclinations.  All  seems  for  a  time  to 
prosper  with  her,  but  in  the  end  she  is  thoroughly  outwitted, 
and  all  her  petty  deceit  exposed.  "  Almeria"  shows  the  debas- 
ing consequences  produced  by  the  passionate  pursuit  of  fashion 
for  its  own  sake,  unredeemed  by  any  ennobling  feature.  "  Viv- 
ian "  illustrates  the  terrible  evil  sometimes  caused  by  indecision 
of  character.  Vivian,  the  undecided,  brilliant  young  noble ; 
Russel,  the  faithful  tutor;  Wharton,  the  unscrupulous  politi- 
cian; self-willed  Lord  Glistonbury;  prim  Lady  Glistonbury; 
and  vivacious  Lady  Julia,  —  seem  to  start  from  the  canvas. 

But  the  "  Absentee  "  is  considered  by  most  judges  to  be  Miss 


342  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Edgeworth's  master-piece.  Lord  Macaulay  observed  that  the 
scene  in  which  Lord  Colambre  discovers  himself  to  his  father's 
tenants  was  "  the  best  thing  of  its  kind  since  the  beginning  of 
the  twenty-second  book  of  the  '  Odyssey.'  "  While  speaking  of 
this  work  it  will  not  be  inappropriate  to  introduce  a  story  which 
is  told  of  the  authoress.  Miss  Edgeworth  was  one  afternoon 
making  tea  for  her  father.  After  allowing  the  liquid  to  "  draw" 
for  the  requisite  period  of  time,  she  proceeded  to  remove  the 
cosey  and  to  pour  out  a  cupful  for  her  father.  To  her  intense 
astonishment  pure  water,  without  the  slightest  suspicion  of  the 
fragrant  congou,  issued  from  the  spout  of  the  teapot.  "  Ha, 
ha  !  Maria,"  laughed  Mr.  Edgeworth,  "  there  's  another  of  your 
Irish  bulls."  "  No,  father,"  she  quickly  replied,  "  it 's  only 
absentee"  "  Madame  de  Fleury "  was  a  French  lady  who 
established  a  school  in  Paris  for  neglected  girls.  Forced,  on 
account  of  the  Revolution,  to  take  refuge  in  England,  she  was 
there  maintained  by  her  former  pupils  and  was  eventually 
enabled  to  return  to  France.  "  Emilie  de  Coulanges,"  a  rather 
dry  and  uninteresting  story,  describes  the  lives  led  by  two 
French  refugees  with  Mrs.  Somer,  a  lady  afflicted  with  a  very 
bad  temper,  yet  with  a  kind  heart  at  bottom. 

In  1814  she  produced  "  Patronage,"  which  was  followed  soon 
after  by  "  Harrington,"  "  Ormond,"  and  "  Comic  Dramas,"  the 
last  failing  on  the  stage. 

"Ormond,"  an  Irish  tale,  can  vie  with  any  of  Miss  Edge- 
worth's  novels  for  general  excellence.  We  read  in  it  how  a 
youth  of  naturally  passionate  temper  and  of  neglected  educa- 
tion eventually  attained  a  true  nobility  of  character.  "  King 
Corny,"  "  Ormond,"  "  Sir  Ulick  O'Shane,"  "  Moriarty  Carroll," 
"  Dora,"  "  Mansell  O'Faley,"  are  the  work  of  a  master  hand. 

In  1820,  by  the  death  of  her  father,  Miss  Edgeworth  was 
summoned  from  novel-writing  to  fulfil  the  sacred  duty  of  com- 
pleting his  memoirs. 

A  short  time  after  this  she  paid  a  visit  to  Sir  Walter  Scott 
at  Abbotsford,  where  she  remained  for  a  fortnight.  This  visit 
was  returned  by  the  celebrated  novelist  exactly  two  years 
afterwards. 


MARIA   EDGEWORTH.  343 

In  1834  she  published  "Helen,"  a  novel  of  thrilling  interest, 
in  which  she  shows  more  maturity  of  judgment  and  greater 
knowledge  of  the  different  passions  of  the  human  mind  than 
in  any  of  her  previous  books.  She  manifested  great  interest 
in  a  correspondence  which  had,  some  years  previously,  taken 
place  between  her  father  and  Thomas  Day,  as  to  the  pro- 
priety of  ladies  engaging  in  literary  work,  in  which  the  latter 
stoutly  maintained  the  opposition.  It  was  for  the  purpose 
of  answering,  his  objections  and  confuting  his  arguments  that 
she  published  the  work  entitled  "  Letters  for  Literary  La- 
dies." Miss.  Edgeworth's  tales  for  children  have  met  with  well- 
deserved  commendation.  They  include  "  Rosamond,"  "  Harry 
and  Lucy,"  and  "  Orlandino." 

She  was  on  terms  of  the  greatest  intimacy  with  the  most  dis- 
tinguished of  her  contemporaries.  Scott  entertained  a  feeling 
of  the  highest  regard  for  her,  and  is  reported  to  have  expressed 
a  desire  to  do  the  same  for  Scotland  as  Miss  Edgeworth  had 
done  for  Ireland.  O'Connell  lamented  that  a  woman  possess- 
ing so  great  influence  did  not  serve  Ireland  as  an  agitator. 
Byron,  in  spite  of  his  caustic  remark  about  "  Miss  Edgeworth's 
novels  stepping  from  their  covers,"  greatly  admired  her  writ- 
ings. "  And  Lord  Macaulay  was  one  of  her  most  enthusias- 
tic worshippers."  "  Among  all  the  instances  connected  with 
the  publication  of  his  history,"  says  Mr.  Trevelyan,  "  nothing 
pleased  Macaulay  better  than  the  gratification  he  contrived  to 
give  Maria  Edgeworth,  as  a  small  return  for  the  enjoyment 
which  during  a  period  of  more  than  forty  years  he  had  derived 
from  her  charming  writings." 

So  great,  indeed,  was  his  admiration  for  her,  that  in  his  history 
he  mentioned  her  in  a  note,  in  which  he  characterizes  her  delin- 
eation of  King  Corny  in  "  Ormond  "  as  "  that  admirable  por- 
-trait."  How  gratifying  the  praise  of  so  great  a  writer  must 
have  been  to  Miss  Edgeworth  is  shown  in  a  letter  written  a 
short  time  afterwards  to  an  intimate  friend,  in  which  she  speaks 
of  "the  self-satisfaction,  vanity,  pride,  surprise,  I  had  in  finding 
my  own  name  in  a  note."  This  highly  talented  and  amiable 
woman  peacefully  departed  this  life  May  21,  1849,  after  having 


344  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

lived  to  see  her  works  obtain  a  place  in  the  first  ranks  of  Eng- 
lish literature. 

Miss  Edgeworth's  novels  are  distinguished  for  the  genial 
humor  which  runs  through  them,  for  sobriety  of  judgment,  for 
the  vivacious  and  perfectly  natural  dialogues  which  are  intro- 
duced, and  above  all  for  the  admirably  drawn  character  studies 
with  which  all  her  works  abound.  Some  critics  have  found 
fault  with  her  novels  as  being  too  didactic  to  please  as  fiction 
should  please.  But  Miss  Edgeworth  was  professedly  a  moral 
writer,  and  never  if  possible  let  slip  an  opportunity  of  enforcing 
on  the  reader's  attention  some  important  moral  precept. 

As  a  national  novelist  and  a  depictor  of  the  more  humble 
phases  of  life  she  yields  the  palm  to  Sir  Walter  Scott  only; 
while  as  a  practical  moral  teacher  she  stands  alone  among  nov- 
elists. And  last  but  not  least  among  the  many  qualities  which 
claim  for  her  a  right  to  be  considered  as  a  public  benefactor 
are  her  noble  and  pure  character,  her  kindness  of  heart,  ever 
keenly  alive  to  the  call  of  suffering  humanity,  and  the  numerous 
domestic  virtues  which  brightened  and  adorned  the  peaceful 
and  happy  home  of  which  she  was  the  centre. 


WALTER   SCOTT. 

[BORN  1771.    DIED  1832.] 

« 

A  LTHOUGH  the  novels  of  the  latter  end  of  the  last  century 
•**  often  displayed  abilities  of  the  highest  order  in  con- 
struction, in  individuality,  and  in  dramatic  power,  yet  they  were 
tinged  with  a  tone  of  immorality  which  has  almost  consigned 
them  to  oblivion  except  to  the  student  of  literature.  Fielding 
and  Smollett's  works  (with  others)  are  seldom  or  never  found 
now  on  the  ordinary  family  book-shelves.  It  is  only  with 
regard  to  the  GOOD  qualities  they  developed,  mentioned  above, 
that  they  are  even  acceptable  to  the  student.  Between  the 


WALTER    SCOTT. 


WALTER   SCOTT.  347 

time  of  which  we  speak  and  the  appearance  of  the  novel  of 
"  Waverley,"  the  novel  of  the  period  was  but  a  poor  affair,  — 
poor  in  fact  in  every  respect,  generally  weak  in  plot  and  in  con- 
struction, —  and,  to  use  a  common  expression,  the  work  was 
but  twaddle. 

Walter  Scott,  the  son  of  a  writer  to  the  signet,  which  is  equiv- 
alent to  being  an  attorney  in  England,  was  born  in  Edinburgh 
in  1771,  and,  having  received  a  good  education,  was  himself  in 
1792  made  an  advocate  of  the  Scottish  bar.  His  father  was 
able  to  allow  him  a  handsome  income,  and  he  began  life  in  a 
style  very  different  from  the  starting  of  the  typical  poet.  But 
he  made  no  progress  in  his  own  profession.  The  law  had  no 
fascination  for  him,  and  the  wonder  is  that  it  has  any  fascination 
for  anybody. 

Although  an  eloquent  speaker  he  had  not  a  forensic  mind, 
and  having,  in  1799,  through  the  powerful  influence  of  the 
Duke  of  Buccleugh,  obtained  the  Crown  Office  appointment  of 
Sheriff  of  Selkirkshire,  to  which  was  attached  the  salary  of 
,£300  per  year,  he  devoted  his  attention  to  literature. 

He  had  reached  nearly  his  twenty-fifth  year  before  he  showed 
any  of  those  talents  which  eventually  distinguished  him  as  the 
leading  writer  of  his  age.  He  himself  says  that  during  the  last 
ten  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  poetry  had  fallen  to  a  very 
low  level,  and  he  describes  the  wonderful  excitement  produced 
in  literary  circles  by  some  translations  of  the  German  ballad 
school,  especially  of  Burger's  "  Leonore,"  and  also  the  effect  of 
them  on  his  own  mind.  He  resolved  to  "  rush  into  print,"  and 
accordingly  produced  in  1796  some  German  translations  and 
the  "  Wild  Huntsman  "  in  a  thin  quarto  volume,  which,  like  a 
great  many  first  attempts,  failed.  But,  like  numberless  other 
brave  men  who  fail  at  first,  he  again  wooed  the  muses,  and  after 
the  publication  of  some  small  poems  gave  to  the  world  the 
"  Minstrelsy  of  the  Border,"  the  work  which  stamped  him  as  a 
genius  and  as  an  excellent  practical  antiquary. 

This  work  was  followed  in  1805  by  the  celebrated  poem,  the 
"  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel."  Its  originality,  poetical  beauty, 
and  great  power  produced  a  wonderful  •  effect  on  the  publig 


348  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

mind.     After  this  he  published  a  series  of  poems,  commencing 
with  "  Marmion  "  and  finishing  with  "  Harold  the  Dauntless." 

It  was  not  until  1814  that  the  appearance  of  "Waverley" 
marked  an  event  in  the  era  of  literature.  Coming  after  the  weak 
fashionable  novel  of  the  period,  its  free,  graceful,  natural,  and 
manly  style  caused  a  deep  sensation.  As  is  well  known,  it  was 
published  anonymously ;  and  for  some  years  afterwards  "  By  the 
author  of '  Waverley '  "  was  on  the  titlepage  of  his  novels.  He 
produced  them  with  astonishing  rapidity,  —  as  many  as  six  or 
seven  volumes  annually;  and  the  even  greatness  of  the  talent 
displayed  in  them  is  simply  marvellous,  let  alone  the  grandeur 
of  the  construction  and  the  dramatic  force  of  the  characters. 
The  beauties  of  descriptions  and  the  thorough  naturalness  dis- 
played all  through  are  the  charms  and  beauties  that  have 
endeared  his  works  to  so  many  thousands  of  readers. 

He  rose  rapidly  to  wealth  and  fame.  He  was  created  in  1820. 
a  baronet  of  the  United  Kingdom.  He  was  surrounded  by 
every  earthly  happiness  it  seems  possible  to  enjoy,  beloved  in 
his  domestic  circle,  adored  by  the  peasantry,  and  standing  on 
the  proud  pinnacle  of  fame.  But  there  came  a  cruel  change. 
In  1826  his  principal  publishers,  Messrs.  Constable  and  Com- 
pany, failed  for  an  immense  sum.  It  then  became  known  that 
the  great  author  was  deeply  involved  to  the  amount  of  ,£120.000, 
by  bill  and  other  transactions  with  Messrs.  Constable,  of  which 
barely  half  was  incurred  by  himself.  To  his  undying  honor  he 
undertook  to  pay  off  this  immense  debt  without  any  deduction. 
He  refused  at  the  meeting  of  the  creditors  to  accept  any  com- 
promise, and  declared  that  if  life  and  health  were  spared  him 
he  would  meet  the  amount  to  the  uttermost  shilling.  He  in- 
sured his  life  in  the  favor  of  the  estate  for  upwards  of  .£20,000, 
realized  all  the  property  he  could  (including  the  sale  of  his 
town  house),  then  grappled  with  the  Herculean  task  to  sweep 
away  the  enormous  debt.  To  add  to  his  cup  of  sorrow,  a 
month  after  the  crash  his  wife  was  taken  from  him. 

For  five  or  six  years  following  the  calamity  did  Sir  Walter 
Scott  continue  his  enormous  labors,  sending  to  the  reading 
world  eight  or  nine'  romances,  the  "  Life  of  Napoleon,"  "  His- 


WALTER   SCOTT.  349 

tory  of  Scotland,"  "  Tales  of  my  Grandfather,"  "  Letters  on 
Demonology,"  etc.  The  profits  on  these  were  so  great,  that 
in  1830  more  than  £54,000  of  the  debt  had  been  paid  off. 
But  the  mental  tension  produced  by  the  enormous  exertion 
began  to  tell  on  even  his  robust  frame ;  his  hair  turned  as 
white  as  snow,  he  became  dejected,  slight  paralysis  set  in,  and 
the  springs  of  life  began  to  give  way.  During  1831  he  grew 
worse,  and  all  mental  exertion  was  forbidden.  He  was  then 
ordered  by  his  medical  attendants  to  travel  on  the  Continent. 
In  the  autumn  of  this  year  he  sailed  for  Malta,  but  he  was  very 
loath  to  leave  his  beloved  Scotland.  The  voyage  produced 
favorable  results;  but  after  visiting  Rome  and  Naples  his  in- 
tense longing  for  his  native  land  was  so  great  that  he  hurried 
home  rapidly.  But  in  his  then  state  of  health  the  haste  with 
which  he  travelled  was  highly  injurious.  He  had  a  severe 
attack  of  his  disease  in  passing  down  the  Rhine. 

Medical  aid  was  of  no  avail.  His  ardent  dying  wish  was 
to  see  once  more  his  favorite  Abbotsford.  He  was  conveyed 
there  on -the  nth  of  July,  1832,  but  was  in  such  a  pitiable  con- 
dition that  he  no  longer  recognized  those  dear  to  him.  He 
lingered  in  this  state  until  the  2ist  of  September,  1832,  when 
he  expired  without  a  struggle. 

Thus  died  the  great  and  good  Walter  Scott,  whose  pen 
has  given  and  will  give  delight  and  instruction  to  thousands. 
Always  pure,  high-minded,  and  true  to  nature,  his  works  can 
be  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  youth  of  both  sexes  with  advan- 
tage. There  can  be  no  doubt  that  his  poems  swept  away  the 
interminable  nonsense  anent  Phillis  and  Chloe,  and  his  novels 
the  coarseness  that  disgraced  the  fictions  of  the  last  century. 


350  OUR   GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 


ROBERT   SOUTHEY. 

[BORN  1774.    DIED  1843.] 

ROBERT  SOUTHEY  was  born  at  Bristol  on  the  I2th  of 
August,  1774.  His  parents,  descended  from  good  fami- 
lies of  the  county  of  Somerset,  appear  to  have  found  it  difficult 
to  get  on  in  the  world,  and  the  care  and  education  of  their 
son  Robert  was  in  consequence  undertaken  by  his  mother's 
maiden  aunt,  Miss  Tyler. 

Of  this  lady  Southey  has,  in  his  autobiography,  given  us 
a  very  interesting  sketch.  She  appears  to  have  been  quite  a 
celebrity  in  Bristol  on  account  of  her  eccentricities  and  her 
passion  for  theatres  and  actors.  To  her  Robert  Southey  was 
indebted  for  his  familiarity  with  the  drama,  and  very  early  in 
his  boyhood  he  had  read  through  Shakspeare  and  Beaumont 
and  Fletcher.  Even  before  going  to  Westminster  School, 
which  he  entered  in  his  fourteenth  year,  we  find  that  so  ardent 
was  he  in  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  that  he  had  mastered  Spen- 
ser, and,  through  translations,  Tasso  and  Ariosto,  Ovid  and 
Homer.  Proceeding  to  Westminster  School  in  1787,  Southey 
remained  there  four  years,  and  was  then  dismissed,  owing  to 
a  contribution  from  his  pen  which  appeared  in  a  small  publi- 
cation set  on  foot  by  the  boys. 

During  his  stay  he  formed  some  lifelong  friendships,  and  to 
one,  that  with  Mr.  C.  W.  Wynn,  Southey  was  indebted  for  an 
annuity  for  many  years,  until,  in  fact,  provision  was  made  for 
him  by  the  Government. 

To  the  kindness  of  a  maternal  uncle  he  was  indebted  for 
the  means  of  proceeding  to  the  University  of  Oxford ;  and 
he  entered  Balliol  in  1793,  the  uncle's  intention  being  that  he 
should  enter  the  Church.  Southey's  religious  opinions  were, 
however,  not  sufficiently  decided  to  justify  this,  and  he  appears 


23 


ROBERT    SOUTHEY. 


ROBERT   SOUTHEY.  353 

to  have  had  a  greater  predilection  for  medicine ;  but  the  dis- 
secting-room turned  him  against  this  also,  and  he  soon  after 
abandoned  his  university  career  and  joined  Coleridge,  with  whom 
he  had  formed  an  intimacy,  at  Bristol.  With  the  two  Burnett 
also. lived;  and  this  trio,  in  conjunction  with  Robert  Lovell  and 
a  few  others,  formed  a  plan  —  worthy  of  Robert  Owen  —  to 
establish  a  society  on  the  banks  of  the  Ohio,  and  there  in  the 
New  World  establish  a  community  on  a  thoroughly  social  basis. 
Money,  or  rather  the  want  of  it,  seems  to  have  prevented  the 
actual  attempt  of  the  scheme,  and  Lovell's  death  put  an  end 
to  their  plans. 

For  subsistence  Southey  commenced  to  give  public  lectures 
on  history,  and  published  his  first  work,  "  Joan  of  Arc,"  an  epic 
of  considerable  length ;  "  a  work,"  says  Mr.  Hazlitt,  "  in  which 
the  love  of  liberty  is  inhaled  like  the  breath  of  spring." 

The  uncle  to  whom  he  was  so  much  indebted,  becoming 
alarmed  at  what  he  considered  the  socialist  opinions  of  his 
nephew,  induced  Southey  to  proceed  to  Lisbon,  thinking  that  he 
would  be  weaned  from  his  wild  political  sentiments  as  well  as 
from  what  was  believed  to  be  an  imprudent  attachment.  To 
gratify  his  friends  Southey  consented,  but  married  Edith  Fricker 
the  morning  of  his  departure.  Returning  from  Lisbon  at  the 
end  of  six  months,  he  took  up  his  residence  in  London,  entered 
himself  at  Gray's  Inn,  and  for  a  year  devoted  himself  to  the 
study  of  law.  Having  no  leaning  in- this  direction,  he  gave  up 
this  study  also,  and  joined  Charles  Lamb,  Humphry  Davy, 
and  Coleridge  in  the  publication  of  two  volumes  of  poetry 
under  the  title  of  "  Annual  Anthology."  In  1801  he  obtained 
a  position  as  private  secretary  to  the  Chancellor  df  the  Excheq- 
uer in  Ireland ;  but,  finding  on  his  arrival  in  Dublin  that  the 
post  was  a  sinecure,  he  gave  it  up  and  the  salary  in  disgust. 

Returning  to  England,  he  settled  at  Greta,  in  Cumberland, 
and  set  to  work  for  the  booksellers ;  and,  what  with  prose  and 
verse,  the  result  of  his  labors  was  really  marvellous.  In  1806 
he  was  at  the  same  time  engaged  in  writing  the  "  History  of 
Portugal,"  "  Espriella's  Letters,"  and  the  "  Curse  of  Kehama." 
Whether  his  works  succeeded  or  failed,  it  was  to  him  the  same ; 


354  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

his  courage  and  perseverance  never  deserted  him,  and  he  relig- 
iously believed  that  future  generations  would  recognize  his 
talents. 

In  1807  he  produced  "Specimens  of  the  Later  English 
Poets  "  and  "  Palmerin  of  England  ;  "  but  his  increased  earnings 
were  now  devoted  to  the  relief  and  maintenance  of  his  wife's 
sister  and  her  children.  The  wife  and  children  of  Coleridge 
also  found  a  sanctuary  in  Southey's  home ;  and  many  were  the 
gifts  to  the  unfortunate  in  the  world  of  literature. 

In  1813,  on  the  death  of  Mr.  Pye,  the  offer  of  the  post  oi 
poet-laureate  was,  on  Scott's  suggestion,  made  to  Southey,  and 
by  him  accepted. 

For  the  remainder  of  his  life  the  labor  of  Southey  was  inces- 
sant, but  by  degrees  the  happiness  of  his  home  was  departing. 
First  he  loses  a  favorite  child ;  then  his  wife,  to  whom  he  was  so 
devoted,  was  placed  in  a  lunatic  asylum.  While  suffering-  under 
this  trying  affliction  he  was  offered  a  baronetcy  by  Sir  Robert 
Peel,  but  the  distinction  was  declined. 

In  1837  his  beloved  wife,  who  had  returned  to  her  home, 
died.  After  this  Southey  became  an  altered  man.  He  says : 
"  There  is  no  one  to  partake  with  me  the  recollections  of  the 
best  and  happiest  portions  of  my  life,  and  for  that  reason  such 
recollections  must  be  painful  except  when  I  connect  them  with 
the  prospect  of  futurity."  To  divert  his  mind  he  made  a  trip 
to  the  Continent,  and  in  1839  again  married;  but  he  never 
recovered  the  loss  of  his  wife  Edith.  After  that  event  all  about 
him  saw  that  his  faculties  had  lost  their  vigor,  and  that  a  melan- 
choly decline  had  taken  possession  of  him.  Forty-five  years  of 
incessant  toil  had  done  its  work,  and  his  life  for  a  year  before 
his  death  was  a  mental  blank.  He  died  on  the  2ist  of  March, 
1843,  and  was  buried  in  Crossthwaite  Churchyard,  where  lie 
his  beloved  Edith  and  the  children  that  preceded  him. 

The  socialistic  and  Utopian  ideas  which  had  marked  South- 
ey's early  life  were  abandoned  long  before  his  death,  and  he 
appears  to  have  become  thoroughly  conservative  in  his  opin- 
ions. .His  life  has  been  described  as  a  picture,  the  first  sight 
of  which  elicits  boundless  satisfaction,  frequent  inspection 


EAST   INDIA   HOUSE 


CHARLES     LAMB. 


CHARLES    LAMB.  357 

qualifies  delight,  and  a  last  parting  look  would  seem  to  justify 
the  early  admiration.  Commenting  upon  Southey's  industry 
and  generosity,  another  able  writer  has  well  said :  "  If  biography 
be  not  utterly  worthless,  these  illustrations  of  his  character  have 
an  inestimable  value.  Look  at  him,  pen  in  hand,  the  indefati- 
gable laborer  in  his  literary  seclusion,  with  no  inheritance  but 
a  vigorous  intellect,  no  revenue  but  such  as  his  industry  might 
furnish,  perfect  in  the  relation  of  husband,  brother,  father, 
friend ;  by  his  chosen  labors  delighting  the  world,  as  well  as 
ministering  to  the  happiness  of  his  needy  circle.  Look,  we 
say,  and  confess  that  heroism  is  here  which  conquerors  might 
envy." 


CHARLES    LAMB. 

[BORN  1775.    DIED  1834.] 

IN  the  National  Portrait  Gallery  at  South  Kensington  are 
three  very  remarkable  portraits  side  by  side.  One  is  of 
a  young  man  with  a  noticeable  weakness  of  chin  and  extreme 
mobility  of  expression.  Next  to  this  hangs  one  of  a  "  cast  of 
face  slightly  Jewish,"  a  rather  delicately  formed  aquiline  nose, 
and  a  somewhat  prominent  or,  as  it  is  often  familiarly  called, 
old-fashioned  chin;  and  next  to  this  a  face  of  a  mould  de- 
cidedly reminding  the  spectator  of  those  ancient  and  remark- 
able people  called  Aztecs.  The  forehead  is  fairly  developed, 
though  somewhat  retreating,  the  nose  enormous  but  well- 
shaped,  and  the  lips  prominent  and  sensitive.  They  are  the 
portraits  of  three  intimate  friends:  the  first,  Samuel  Taylor 
Coleridge ;  the  last,  Robert  Southey ;  the  middle  one,  Charles 
Lamb.  They  are  taken  at  ages  varying  from  twenty-three 
to  twenty-eight,  all  young,  all  already  known  in  the  literary 
world.  Few  men  of  the  time  made  a  deeper  or  more  lasting 
impression  upon  literature ;  none  attained  a  securer  place  in 
the  affectionate  regard  of  their  readers. 


35$  OUR  GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 

Charles  Lamb,  as  he  is  always  familiarly  called,  was  born  in 
the  Inner  Temple,  on  the  i8th  of  February,  1775  ;  the  particu- 
lar locality  was  Crown  Office  Row.  He  was  the  youngest  child 
of  John  and  Elizabeth  Lamb.  John  Lamb  the  elder  (Charles 
had  a  brother  John)  was  clerk  and  factotum  to  a  Mr.  Salt,  a 
bencher,  and  was  to  a  certain  limited  extent  a  literary  char- 
acter. A  volume  of  "  Poetical  Pieces "  was  almost  the  only 
production  of  his  starveling  muse;  for  what  could  a  poor 
lawyer's  writer  do  in  dealing  with  wealthy  publishers,  or  in 
calling  the  attention  and  criticism  of  a  fastidious  public? 
Fortunately  for  Charles,  when  a  child  of  seven  he  received  a 
presentation  to  Christ's  Hospital,  so  often  the  nursery  of  happy 
literary  friendships,  and  there  he  remained  for  seven  years. 
He  had  a  defect  in  his  speech,  in  reality  a  slight  stammer,  not 
painful,  but  sufficient  to  prevent  his  success  as  an  exhibitioner. 
In  his  own  brief  autobiography,  published  among  the  "  Last 
Essays  of  Elia,"  he  says  of  himself  that  he  "  stammers  abomi- 
nably, and  is  therefore  more  apt  to  discharge  his  occasional 
conversation  in  a  quaint  aphorism  or  a  poor  quibble  than  in 
set  and  edifying  speeches ;  has  consequently  been  libelled  as  a 
person  always  aiming  at  wit,  which,  as  he  told  a  dull  fellow  that 
charged  him  with  it,  is  at  least  as  good  as  aiming  at  dulness." 

When  Charles  was  still  a  boy,  he  and  his  sister  Mary,  who 
was  ten  years  his  senior,  were  allowed  free  access  to  Mr.  Salt's 
library,  which  must  have  been  particularly  rich  in  old  English 
authors,  as  Charles  Lamb's  early  reading  certainly  gave  the 
bias  to  his  whole  life.  The  taste  for  poetry  and  the  drama 
thus  fostered  was  further  strengthened  by  his  boyish  friendship 
for  his  schoolfellow  Coleridge,  whom  he  used  to  speak  of  as 
"  the  inspired  charity  boy."  Coleridge  was  two  years  older 
than  Lamb ;  and  when  the  latter  was  transferred  from  Christ's 
Hospital  to  a  clerkship  at  the  old  South  Sea  House,  the  former 
removed  to  Cambridge.  Of  the  old  South  Sea  House  itself  a 
description  in  Lamb's  own  gossiping  style  is  given  in  the  com- 
mencing Essays  of  that  series  which  first  appeared  in  the  "  Lon- 
don Magazine"  about  1820,  and  soon  became  world-famous  as 
the  "  Essays  of  Elia."  Lamb  did  not  hold  his  first  appointment 


CHARLES   LAMB.  359 

more  than  two  years,  at  the  end  of  which  time,  through  the 
kindly  influence  of  his  father's  employer,  Mr.  Salt,  he  obtained 
a  clerkship  in  the  East  India  House,  Leadenhall  Street.  This 
became  the  long  occupation  of  his  life,  until  after  many  years  he 
retired  upon  a  pension.  But  he  never  liked  his  work.  The  cir- 
cumstances of  his  position  necessitated  his  keeping  to  it,  and  he 
faithfully  performed  all  his  business  duties.  What  literary  recre- 
ation he  had  was  always  taken  at  home  after  office  hours. 

Now  and  then  a  visit  from  Coleridge  would  brighten  the 
brief  moments  between  work  and  bedtime,  and  the  two  enthusi- 
asts would  retire  to  a  tavern  in  Newgate  Street,  where  they 
used  to  smoke  and  talk  de  omnibus  rebus  et  quibusdam  a/us. 
If  the  Thames  had  been  inflammable,  their  intentions  were  cer- 
tainly ardent  enough  to  have  set  it  on  firai  But  we  must  wait 
a  little  for  the  crisis  of  their  Utopian  schemes.  Four  or  five 
years  afterwards,  when  Southey  had  joined  them,  their  projects 
became  very  remarkable.  But  to  the  credit  of  the  others  it 
must  be  admitted  that  whatever  of  visionary  and  unpractical 
occurred  in  their  plans,  its  origin  could  always  be  traced  to  the 
metaphysical  brain  of  Coleridge.  Southey  was  ever  intensely 
practical,  however  poetic  or  sentimental  his  writings  may  seem 
to  be ;  and  Lamb  had  that  keen  sense  of  humor  which  utterly 
prevented  him  from  seriously  contemplating  the  wonderful 
schemes  projected  by  Coleridge  as  anything  but  thoroughly 
amusing  subjects  of  conversation.  All  the  world  knows  how 
Coleridge  could  talk.  But  in  some  degree  the  satire  contained 
in  the  famous  epitaph  on  Charles  II.  was  true  of  this  noble- 
minded  but  unpractical  dreamer.  It  might  be  said  with  equal 
truth  of  him  that  he  "  never  said  a  foolish  thing,"  but  not  that 
"he  never  did  a  wise  one."  Like  many  another  man  whose 
soul  was  divinely  touched,  he  was  imprudent  in  worldly  mat- 
ters ;  but  no  one  ever  accused  him  of  immorality.  Probably 
Lamb's  weaknesses  would  have  been  less  conspicuous  but  for 
the  tinge  of  hereditary  insanity  which  hung  over  the  family. 
A  brief  period  of  mental  aberration  led  to  his  confinement 
in  an  asylum  at  Hoxton ;  but  before  he  left  he  was  again 
thoroughly  himself,  bright  and  quick-witted  as  ever.  His  sister 


360  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Mary  was  less  fortunate.  In  spite  of  Charles's  earnings  and 
the  father's  little  pension  poverty  must  have  crept  upon  the 
family;  for  soon  after  the  appointment  in  Leadenhall  Street 
we  find  them  in  an  obscure  lodging  in  Little  Queen  Street, 
Holborn.  The  old  man  was  almost  imbecile,  and  the  mother 
bedridden  and  helpless.  A  maiden  aunt  assisted  the  family  by 
joining  her  small  annuity  to  their  income  and  living  with  them, 
while  Charles  gave  up  the  whole  of  his  salary,  except  what  he 
absolutely  required,  and  devoted  all  his  efforts  to  render  the 
rest  happy  and  comfortable. 

The  eldest  brother,  John,  was  a  selfish  creature,  who  lived  by 
himself  elsewhere,  and  did  little  or  nothing  to  assist  his  afflicted 
parents.  Mary  was  the  mainstay  of  the  household.  Her 
ceaseless  efforts  in  caring  for  her  parents  gradually  undermined 
both  bodily  and  mental  strength ;  the  deplorable  result  being 
the  well-known  tragedy  which  overshadowed  all  her  brother's 
after  life. 

His  imbecile  father  could  enjoy  no  occupation  or  amuse- 
ment but  cribbage,  to  which  for  the  sake  of  the  old  man  this 
tender-hearted  son  tied  himself,  wearily  but  willingly,  until 
death  ended  the  self-denying  task.  The  aunt  did  not  long 
survive,  and  then  Lamb  undertook  single-handed  on  his  own 
slender  means  —  at  that  time  only  £100  a  year  —  to  maintain 
himself  and  his  unhappy  sister,  who  for  the  first  two  years 
seemed  to  be  always  on  the  verge  of  another  relapse.  The 
verses  which  he  wrote  at  this  time  become  invested  with  a  pro- 
found and  melancholy  interest  when  we  know  the  circumstances 
under  which  they  were  composed.  Some  of  them  were  inserted 
in  the  forthcoming  edition  of  Coleridge's  Poems,  published  in 
1797  by  Cottle,  of  Bath.  In  the  following  year  Lamb  and  his 
friend  Lloyd  joined  at  a  volume  of  "  blank  verse,"  the  success 
of  which  was  still  more  blank  than  the  versification.  The  same 
year  saw  the  publication  of  his  story  of  "  Rosamond  Gray." 
Next  came  the  tragedy  of  "  John  Woodvil,"  the  noble  senti- 
ments and  fine  poetry  of  which  did  not  save  it  from  failure  with 
the  public.  The  writer,  together  with  his  friends  Lloyd,  Cole- 
ridge, and  Southey,  were  ridiculed  in  the  "  Anti-Jacobin  "  and 


CHARLES    LAMB.  361 

caricatured  by  Gillray.  These  attacks  considerably  increased  the 
fame  of  the  victims.  Their  portraits,  taken  about  this  time,  are 
those  already  alluded  to  as  hanging  side  by  side  at  South 
Kensington.  In  1800  Lamb  went  to  reside  in  Mitre  Court 
Buildings,  in  the  Temple,  where  he  wrote  more  verses.  The 
publication  of  "  John  Woodvil "  obtained  from  the  Edinburgh 
reviewers  the  favor  of  their  contempt  as  a  "  specimen  of  the 
rudest  condition  of  the  drama,"  and  the  writer  of  it  as  "  a  man 
of  the  age  of  Thespis."  Lamb's  ideas  of  dramatic  composition 
were  too  high-flown  and  classical  for  the  exigencies  of  the 
modern  stage.  It  was  in  Mitre  Court  that  Mary  Lamb  wrote 
those  fascinating  "  Tales  from  Shakspeare,"  six  of  which  were 
contributed  by  her  brother;  and  here  also  Charles  wrote  his 
"  Adventures  of  Ulysses  "  and  his  "  Specimens  of  the  Dramatic 
Poets  who  lived  about  the  time  of  Shakspeare."  In  Decem- 
ber, 1806,  was  produced  at  Drury  Lane  his  farce  of"  Mr.  H.," 
which  turned  out  a  most  unmitigated  failure.  The  hisses  with 
which  its  denouement  was  received  were  so  violent  that  Lamb, 
who  was  sitting  with  his  sister  in  the  front  of  the  pit,  was  car- 
ried away  with  the  general  disgust,  and  "  hissed  and  hooted  "  as 
loudly  as  the  rest. 

And  so  wore  on  the  life  of  the  genial  and  light-hearted  essay- 
ist; for  it  is  not  his  poems,  but  those  immortal  "Essays  of  Elia," 
by  which  Lamb  is  destined  to  be  remembered.  Mary's  oft- 
recurring  fits  of  insanity  were  an  abiding  sorrow,  but  he  made 
the  best  of  his  wretched  fate.  He  always  bore  himself  bravely 
against  his  trying  circumstances,  and  appeared  to  those  who 
knew  him  least  a  thoughtless,  cheerful  sort  of  man,  who  cared 
for  nothing  so  much  as  a  light  and  trivial  jest.  His  Wednesday 
evenings  were  really  happy  times.  Gathered  on  those  merry 
occasions  nominally  to  play  whist,  but  less  for  play  than  talk, 
were  men  whose  names  are  now  historic.  Among  his  constant 
visitors  might  be  seen  Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  Hazlitt,  Godwin, 
and  Leigh  Hunt  in  the  earlier  days,  and  afterwards  Talfourd 
and  Tom  Hood.  These  Wednesday  gatherings  remind  us  of 
the  memorable  dinners  at  the  publishers  of  the  "London  Maga- 
zine," where  Lamb  used  to  meet  Carlyle,  De  Quincey,  Hood, 


362  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Landor,  Hare,  Cunningham,  Keats,  Gary,  and  a  host  of  others. 
The  "  London  Magazine  "  was  started  in  1820,  and  the  contribu- 
tors used  to  meet  at  a  monthly  dinner  to  talk  over  the  various 
business  arising  out  of  the  publication.  To  this  magazine  Lamb 
contributed  the  papers  by  which  he  is  best  known  in  literature, 
taking  the  name  of  "  Elia "  from  a  fellow-clerk  at  the  India 
House.  In  1823  he  went  to  live  at  Colebrook  Cottage,  Islmg- 
ton,  close  to  the  New  River,  whence  he  used  to  walk  daily  to 
his  office  in  London.  He  was  fond  of  long  walks,  and  often 
used  to  indulge  in  them  with  one  or  other  of  his  companions, 
or  more  commonly  with  a  little  orphan  girl  whom  they  had 
adopted,  and  called  Emma  Isola,  who  resided  with  them.  He 
retired  from  his  clerkship  in  1825  on  a  small  pension,  and  an 
allowance  from  the  directors  for  himself  and  his  sister.  An- 
other removal  in  1826  took  them  to  Enfield;  but  the  distance 
from  London  proved  a  sad  drawback  to  that  social  life  in  which 
Lamb  was  always  so  happy.  The  genial  Temple  gatherings 
were  now  impossible.  Many  are  the  anecdotes  told  of  his 
ready  wit  and  cheery,  gentle  puns.  Hood  invited  him  to  din- 
ner, telling  him  that  he  would  have  one  of  his  favorite  dishes, 
—  a  hare.  "  And  many  friends?  "  asked  Lamb.  The  allusion 
at  once  to  Cowper  and  to  the  company  was  perfect  in  its  neat- 
ness. When  Leitch  Ritchie  visited  the  Lambs  he  was  intro- 
duced to  Mary,  who  was  sitting  near  a  window  absorbed  in 
thought.  After  a  few  moments  she  suddenly  broke  into  the 
conversation  with  the  question,  "  Charles,  what  has  become  of 
Hannah  More?"  He  answered  promptly,  but  with  a  slight 
stammer  which  made  the  pun  all  the  more  striking,  "  She  is 
not  h'any  More."  She  was  then  dead. 

In  1833  Lamb  again  removed,  and  went  to  Edmonton.  In 
the  following  summer  Coleridge  died.  A  man  does  not  lose  a 
friend  of  fifty  years'  standing  very  easily.  Lamb  was  com- 
pletely stupefied  with  the  news,  and  though  his  health  did  not 
appear  to  suffer,  the  shock  must  have  been  one  that  he  really 
could  not  bear.  He  only  lived  six  months  longer.  The  imme- 
diate cause  of  death  was  erysipelas  in  the  face,  arising  from  a 
scratch  received  in  falling  over  a  stone  during  one  of  his  country 


THOMAS     CAMPBELL. 


THOMAS    CAMPBELL.  365 

strolls.  He  died  calmly  and  with  perfect  resignation  on  the 
27th  of  December,  1834,  aged  fifty-nine.  He  lies  buried  with 
his  beloved  sister,  who  survived  him  many  years,  in  Edmonton 
churchyard.  A  story  of  greater  self-sacrifice  and  nobler  unself- 
ishness could  not  be  told.  He  had  some  faults;  none  knew 
them  better  than  himself,  and  they  are  candidly  acknowledged 
in  more  than  one  of  his  essays.  His  place  in  literature  no  one 
can  possibly  dispute.  He  ranks  with  Addison,  Steele,  Temple, 
Shenstone,  and  Macaulay,  and  is  equal  to  the  best  of  them. 


THOMAS    CAMPBELL. 

[BORN  1777.    DIED  1844.] 

TT  is  possible  that  there  may  be  found  some  among  our  readers 
•*•  who  will  at  first  be  disposed  to  cavil  at  the  selection  of  the 
poet  Campbell's  name  as  that  of  a  public  benefactor.  Let  it  be 
asked  if  those  do  not  deserve  well  of  their  kind  who  enrich 
the  language  with  such  noble  or  graceful  thoughts  as  have 
many  of  the  world's  poets.  What  men  should  be  more  highly 
esteemed  as  benefactors  than  such  instructors,  whether  their 
appeal  be  directed  to  the  heart  or  the  intellect?  Grant  this, 
as  few  on  reflection  can  fail  to  do,  and  it  must  be  admitted  how 
worthy  of  a  place  in  this  honorable  list  is  he  to  whom  the 
world  owes  "  The  Pleasures  of  Hope,"  and  the  British  nation, 
more  particularly,  such  a  stirring  appeal  to  patriotism  as  "  Ye 
Mariners  of  England  !  "  Campbell's  battle-pieces,  written  during 
the  gigantic  struggle  with  Napoleon,  did  so  much  to  arouse  the 
patriotism  of  his  countrymen  that  it  was  commonly  said  of  the 
poet  that  he  was  "  the  best  recruiting-sergeant  in  England." 

Thomas  Campbell  was  born  in  Glasgow  on  the  2/th  of  July, 
1777,  in  a  house  no  longer  in  existence,  which  then  stood  in  the 
High  Street,  but  was  demolished  some  fourteen  years  later  in 
the  course  of  improvements.  He  was  the  youngest  of  eleven, 


366  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

and  eighth  son  of  Mr.  Alexander  Campbell,  a  retired  merchant 
who,  after  amassing  considerable  wealth  in  trading  with  Vir- 
ginia, had  been  so  reduced  in  circumstances  by  'the  outbreak 
of  the  American  War  of  Independence  that  ,he  was  compelled 
to  dissolve  his  business  after  paying  all  lawful  claims,  at  the 
expense  of  a  great  part  of  his  private  fortune.  This  Alexander 
was  the  youngest  of  three  brothers,  and,  like  many  other  Scotch- 
men engaged  in  commerce,  both  before  and  since,  came  of 
gentle  blood,  his  family,  the  Campbells  of  Kirnan,  being  lineal 
descendants  of  the  first  Lord  of  Lochawe.  During  the  poet's 
lifetime  the  estate,  which  had  been  inherited  by  his  eldest 
brother,  passed  out  of  the  direct  line,  and  was  eventually  void 
by  the  possessor.  Until  he  attained  his  eighth  year,  Thomas 
was  indebted  for  his  education  to  his  mother,  a  woman  of  sin- 
gularly elegant  tastes  and  a  devoted  musician  ;  much  of  his  time 
was,  however,  spent,  as  he  has  himself  noted  with  affectionate 
remembrance,  under  the  fostering  care  of  a  stocking-weaver, 
Stewart  by  name,  and  his  wife,  in  the  then  rural  neighborhood 
of  Pollokshaws.  When  eight  years  old  he  was  sent  to  the 
grammar  school  of  Glasgow,  where  he  quickly  showed  unusual 
talents,  and  won  the  special  affection  of  the  head  master,  David 
Alison,  a  man  whose  Spartan  rule  has  become  traditional,  but 
who  seems  to  have  been  a  good  scholar  and  a  capable  instruc- 
tor. In  the  October  term  of  1791  the  youth  began  his  college 
life  at  the  University  of  Glasgow,  of  which  he  was  afterwards  to 
become  Lord  Rector  with  so  unusual  a  degree  of  honor.  It 
would  be  tedious  to  enter  on  a  categorical  account  of  his  career 
during  the  next  few  years,  marked  as  it  was  both  by  the  distinc- 
tion which  he  attained  amongst  his  fellow-students,  and  by  the 
arduous  labors  of  instructing  others,  to  which  restricted  means 
compelled  him  to  have  recourse.  A  few  points  must  be  noted, 
more  especially  the  publication,  in  his  first  year,  of  the  ballad 
"  Morven  and  Fillan,"  printed  for  private  circulation,  and  his 
successful  poetical  essay,  descriptive  of  the  distribution  of  the 
University  prizes  on  May  i,  1793.  About  the  same  time  the 
young  student  attempted  the  legal  profession,  and  with  that  end 
in  view  entered  the  office  of  a  relation  in  Glasgow,  Mr.  Alexander 


THOMAS    CAMPBELL.  367 

Campbell,  Writer  to  the  Signet;  he  did  not  long  continue  the 
study,  which  disgusted  and  wearied  by  the  dryness  of  its  routine. 
More  to  his  taste  seem  to  have  been  the  proceedings  of  certain 
debating  clubs,  where  he  made  some  figure,  but  of  which  in 
more  mature  years  he  spoke  with  sarcastic  energy,  especially  of 
the  one  known  as  "  The  Discursive."  No  doubt  his  leanings  in 
this  direction  were  fostered  by  a  visit  paid  to  Edinburgh  in  the 
early  part  of  1794,  during  which  he  witnessed  the  trial  of  certain 
would-be  reformers,  whose  supposed  wrongs  greatly  fired  the 
youth's  generous  imagination.  Scholastic  honors  continued  to 
attend  him  until,  in  his  fourth  college  year,  new  disasters  came 
upon  his  family,  owing  to  the  father's  loss  of  nearly  all  remain- 
ing income  through  a  chancery  suit.  Campbell  promptly  began 
that  succor  of  his  parents'  declining  years  which  he  so  nobly 
maintained  until  the  decease  of  both.  His  first  situation  was 
that  of  tutor  in  the  family  of  a  connection,  Mrs.  Campbell  of 
Sunipol,  in  the  Isle  of  Mull.  It  need  not  be  pointed  out  how 
clearly  the  impressions  made  by  his  surroundings  at  this  time 
are  to  be  traced  throughout  his  works  in  later  life.  A  sub- 
sequent engagement  (1797)  in  the  house  of  General  Napier 
gained  him  a  friend  in  his  employer,  who  tried  hard  to  help 
Campbell  in  the  legal  profession ;  but  these  kind  efforts  were 
defeated,  owing  to  the  supineness  of  others.  At  last,  through 
the  good  offices  of  Dr.  Robert  Anderson,  of  Edinburgh,  the 
future  poet  obtained  literary  work  from  Mr.  Mundell,  publisher 
of  that  city,  and  his  career  may  be  said  to  have  been  fairly 
begun.  It  was  on  the  27th  of  April,  1799,  that  "  The  Pleasures 
of  Hope  "  first  saw  the  light,  and  was  at  once  recognized  as  a 
work  of  high  merit,  if  not  of  absolute  genius.  Perhaps  it  ought 
to  be  mentioned  that  the  excellent  Mr.  Mundell  gave  the  young 
poet  a  sum  of  £60  for  his  copyright  before  publication.  In  the 
light  of  the  poem's  success  this  may  not  seem  high  remu- 
neration, but  it  was  not  to  be  despised  by  a  practically  untried 
author.  "  The  Pleasures  of  Hope,"  together  with  some  smaller 
pieces,  soon  ran  through  several  editions.  On  June  I,  1800, 
Campbell  started  on  a  tour  in  Germany  with  the  intention  of 
collecting  materials  for  a  poetical  work,  which  was  not  fated  to 
24 


OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

be  carried  out,  on  the  achievements  of  Scottish  worthies,  living 
and  dead.  Here,  during  his  stay  in  the  Benedictine  convent 
at  Ratisbon,  he  witnessed  the  siege  of  that  city  by  the  French ; 
after  his  escape  his  travels  brought  him  by  way  of  Leipsic  to 
Hamburg,  where  the  following  winter  was  passed  in  quiet 
study,  chiefly  philosophical.  Journeying  had  not  then  been 
made  easy  as  in  our  own  time,  and  the  return  to  England  was 
a  tedious  affair,  complicated  by  the  general  hostilities  which 
convulsed  the  Continent.  However,  on  March  12,  1801,  the 
poet  sailed  under  convoy  for  Leith ;  but  his  vessel,  the  "  Royal 
George,"  was  forced  to  put  into  Yarmouth,  and  London  was  thus 
made  his  destination.  Warmly  received  by  Mr.  Perry  of  the 
"  Morning  Chronicle,"  to  which  he  had  already  been  a  contrib- 
utor, and  introduced  to  society  by  Lord  Holland,  Campbell  was 
now  in  the  height  of  popularity;  but  his  stay  in  the  metropolis 
was  shortened  by  news  of  his  father's  death,  which  compelled  a 
hasty  return  to  Edinburgh.  A  notable  incident  in  this  journey 
to  the  North  was  the  absurd  accusation  of  high  treason  made 
against  the  poet  on  the  assertions  of  a  foreign  spy :  a  warrant 
was  actually  issued,  and  it  was  not  without  some  little  trouble 
and  annoyance  that  Campbell  proved  his  innocence  of  compli- 
city in  French  schemes  of  invasion.  His  fame  was  now  firmly 
established,  and  the  remainder  of  his  life  must  be  passed  over 
with  comparative  brevity.  His  marriage  took  place  (Septem- 
ber 10,  1802),  in  St.  Margaret's,  Westminster,  to  his  cousin, 
Miss  Matilda  Sinclair,  and  proved  a  most  happy  one  in  spite 
of  the  disapproval  of  some  friends.  His  first  son  was  born  in 
the  following  year,  and  in  1804  the  little  family  removed  from 
Pimlico  to  a  house  at  Sydenham.  The  year  1805  was  signal- 
ized by  the  royal  grant  of  a  pension  of  £200  per  annum,  said 
to.  have  been  made  at  the  instigation  of  Mr.  Fox,  who  was  then 
Minister;  and  the  poet's  circumstances  were  made  still  easier 
by  the  successful  publication  by  subscription  of  his  collected 
works.  This  was  followed  in  1809  by  "  Gertrude  of  Wyoming," 
placed  by  some  foremost  among  his  poems.  It  is  remarkable 
that  he  himself  seems  to  have  thought  more  highly  of  "  Theo- 
doric,"  which  is  now  unknown  to  the  greater  number  of  people, 


THOMAS   CAMPBELL.  369 

except  by  name.  Family  troubles,  including  the  loss  of  his  sec- 
ond son,  and,  in  1812,  of  his  mother,  checkered  a  brilliant  life 
during  the  next  few  years.  Campbell  was  also  much  abroad, 
and  engaged  with  his  great  work,  "  Specimens  of  the  British 
Poets."  In  1821,  by  agreement  with  Mr.  Colburn,  he  became 
editor  of  the  "  New  Monthly  Magazine,"  which  owes  its  greatest 
memories  to  that  time.  His  connection  with  the  foundation  of 
the  University  of  London  next  claims  attention ;  he  was  one 
of  the  most  zealous  promoters,  and  thus  alone  becomes  entitled 
to  the  name  of  a  public  benefactor.  Three  times  in  succession 
(1826-27-283  was  he  afterwards  appointed  as  Lord  Rector  of  his 
Alma  Mater  in  Glasgow,  an  unprecedented  honor.  In  1830  his 
connection  with  the  "  New  Monthly  "  ceased,  and  the  "  Metro- 
politan "  was  started  in  the  following  year.  At  this  period  the 
poet's  sympathy  with  the  cause  of  oppressed  Poland  took  an 
active  form ;  it  will  be  remembered  how,  in  a  famous  passage 
of  the  "  Pleasures  of  Hope," 

"  Hope  for  a  season  bade  the  world  farewell, 
And  Freedom  shrieked  as  Kosciusko  fell !  " 

he  had  commemorated  that  hapless  struggle;  and  now,  in  1831. 
Campbell  followed  up  his  early  protest  by  action,  which  resulted 
in  the  formation  of  the  Association  of  the  Friends'  of  Poland. 
The  commencement  of  decline  may  be  dated  from  the  unsuc- 
cessful appearance  of  the  "Pilgrim  of  Glencoe,"  in  1842;  but 
the  decay  of  a  great  intellect  is  only  a  painful,  not  a  profitable, 
subject  of  contemplation.  The  end  came  peacefully  at  Bou- 
logne, June  15,  1844,  in  the  arms  of  his  devoted  niece,  Miss 
Campbell.  On  June  27,  the  body,  after  lying  in  state  for  a 
time,  was  embarked  for  London,  where,  on  July  3,  it  found  a 
resting-place  among  the  other  great  inmates  of  Westminster 
Abbey.  The  spot  in  Poet's  Corner  is  too  well  known  to  need 
indication. 


370  OUR  GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 


MRS.    JAMESON. 

[BORN  1794.    DIED  1860.] 

TO  Anna  Brownell  Murphy  (Mrs.  Jameson)  all  lovers  of  art 
have  particular  cause  to  be  grateful ;  but  it  is  not  for 
those  works  through  which  she  is  best  known  that  she  should 
be  best  remembered.  The  interest  she  took  in  works  of  art 
grew  out  of  the  deep  interest  she  took  in  human  life ;  her  great 
desire  ever  was  to  lessen  its  sorrows  and  increase  its  beauty  and 
happiness  through  its  intellectual  development.  In  writing  of 
works  of  art  her  aim  was  not  only  to  teach  admiration,  but  to 
teach  intelligent  admiration.  Especially  for  her  own  sex,  she 
was  ambitious  of  progress,  and  many  were  her  efforts  to  obtain 
for  women  a  wider  sphere  of  usefulness;  she  wished  "to  free 
them,  not  from  the  high  duties  to  which  they  are  born,  or  the 
exercise  of  virtues  on  which  the  whole  frame  of  social  life  may 
be  said  to  depend,  but  from  such  trammels  and  disabilities,  be 
they  legal  or  conventional,  as  are  manifestly  injurious." 

Mrs.  Jameson  was  born  in  Dublin  in  1794,  and  was  the  eldest 
daughter  of  a  miniature  painter.  The  means  of  the  artist  were 
at  times  somewhat  limited,  and  Anna,  a  child  of  much  origi- 
nality and  independence  of  character,  early  showed  an  earnest 
desire  to  do  some  work  by  which  to  help  her  parents,  whose 
anxieties  she  had  precociously  the  power  to  understand. 

In  the  collection  known  as  "  Visits  and  Sketches  at  Home 
and  Abroad  "  is  a  tale  of  Eastern  life,  "  Faizy,"  written  at  this 
time;  and  verses  have  been  found  dated  1805,  though  childish, 
yet  full  of  enthusiasm  and  hero-worship. 

At  the  age  of  sixteen,  well  prepared  by  a  liberal  education, 
she  took  the  situation  of  a  governess  in  the  house  of  the  Mar- 
quis of  Winchester,  and  realized  that  wish  for  independence 
and  power  to  help  others  which  had  been  the  ambition  of  her 


MRS.  JAMESON. 


MRS.   JAMESON.  373 

childhood.  In  1821  she  became  engaged  to  Mr.  Robert  Jame- 
son, a  young  barrister.  The  engagement  was  shortly  broken 
off  for  the  time,  and  Anna  again  became  a  governess,  going  to 
Italy.  It  was  during  this  journey  that  the  diary  was  written 
which,  partially  revised  and  with  a  fictitious  ending  added  that 
its  authorship  might  not  be  known,  was  afterwards  published  as 
the  "  Diary  of  an  Ennuyee."  In  it  may  be  read  at  once  the 
writer's  quick  perception  of,  and  enthusiasm  for,  all  that  is 
beautiful,  and  the  sadness  which  then  possessed  her  life. 

In  1825,  the  broken  engagement  having  been  renewed  some 
time  previously,  Anna  Murphy  became  Mrs.  Jameson.  Fanny 
Kemble  describes  Mrs.  Jameson  at  this  time  as  being  a  fair, 
small,  delicately  featured  woman,  with  a  face  that  was  habitu- 
ally refined  and  spiritual  in  its  expression,  yet  capable  of  a 
marvellous  power  of  concentrated  feeling. 

The  "  Loves  of  the  Poets,"  the  next  undertaking  Mrs.  Jame- 
son essayed,  was  commenced  with  much  pleasure,  but  left' 
incomplete,  the  authoress  despairing  of  her  own  power  to  do 
justice  to  the  subject,  which  was  one  that  deeply  interested  her. 
The  "Loves  of  the  Poets  "  was  followed  in  1831  by  "  Lives  of 
Celebrated  Female  Sovereigns,"  and  that  work,  a  year  later,  by 
"  Characteristics  of  Shakspeare's  Women,"  an  important  con- 
tribution to  literature,  showing  such  delicate  perception  and 
profound  critical  power  as  give  to  its  author  the  right  to  be 
considered  a  very  able  commentator  on  our  great  dramatic 
poet,  for  whom  her  enthusiastic  admiration  was  so  great.  This 
work  was  dedicated  to  her  valued  friend,  Fanny  Kemble. 

In  1829  Mr.  Jameson  was  appointed  puisne  judge  in  the 
island  of  Dominica.  His  prospects  there,  however,  being 
uncertain,  Mrs.  Jameson  waited  till  circumstances  made  the 
re-establishment  of  their  home  practicable,  shortly  after  her 
husband's  departure  going  on  the  Continent  with  her  father. 
Of  this  journey  a  record  is  found  in  "  Visits  and  Sketches  at 
Home  and  Abroad." 

In  the  year  1833  Mrs.  Jameson  again  visited  Germany,  where 
she  found  her  name,  through  her  works,  already  familiar,  and  a 
kind  welcome  awaiting  her  in  the  highest  literary  and  social 


374  OUR  GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 

circles,  and  where  she  made  friends  who  were  friends  through- 
out her  life,  and  who  live  before  us  through  her  vivid  and 
genial  descriptions.  Especially  she  was  interested  by  Tieck,  the 
poet,  critic,  and  novelist;  Dannecker,  the  sculptor;  Retzsch, 
the  painter;  Schlegel;  and  by  the  daughter-in-law  of  Goethe, 
Ottilie,  ever  afterwards  so  loved  and  so  faithful  a  friend.  The 
volume  which  was  the  result  of  this  visit  to  Germany  shows  the 
author's  gradually  developing  inclination  towards  those  sub- 
jects which  were  the  chief  works  of  her  life,  and  to  which,  as 
the  daughter  of  an  artist,  she  might  be  biassed  by  hereditary 
tastes.  The  sudden  illness  of  her  father  caused  Mrs.  Jameson 
hastily  to  return  to  England.  While  revising  these  volumes, 
"  Visits  and  Sketches,"  etc.,  —  volumes  in  which  there  is  the  germ 
of  so  much  to  be  afterwards  fully  expounded,  —  Mrs.  Jame- 
son also  occupied  herself  in  bringing  before  the  English  public 
Moritz  Retzsch's  "  Fancies,"  a  series  of  outline  illustrations  to 
Shakspeare,  Goethe,  Schiller,  Burger,  for  which  she  translated 
the  text,  and  for  which  she  also  wrote  an  introduction  to  the 
English  reader. 

About  this  time  her  husband,  who  was  now  established  in 
Toronto,  seemed  to  wish  that  she  should  join  him  there.  Pro- 
tracted uncertainty  about  her  future  and  the  fatigue  of  a  tour  in 
Southern  Germany  caused  Mrs.  Jameson  an  illness.  Her  recov- 
ery she  attributes  to  the  kind  nursing  of  the  Goethe  family,  who 
cherished  her  as  a  "  pet  sister."  On  her  recovery,  her  husband 
having  urgently  desired  her  speedy  departure,  Mrs.  Jameson,  in 
the  autumn  of  1836,  sailed  for  America,  leaving  the  loved  fam- 
ily who  looked  to  her  as  their  chief  support. 

A  dreary  winter  voyage,  followed  by  many  disappointments, 
made  Canada  a  sad  place  in  her  recollections.  Her  affections 
could  find  no  home  there;  sad  and  lonely  in  an  uncongenial 
place,  suffering  from  the  severe  and  to  her  unsuitable  climate, 
she  yet  roused  herself  to  take  an  interest  in  what  was  going  on 
around  her,  while  working  hard  in  her  books  and  studies.  "  The 
angels  of  art "  stood  by  her  in  her  solitude. 

That  deeply  important  matter,  the  question  of  education,  was 
being  discussed  by  the  Canadian  Parliament.  Mrs.  Jameson 


MRS.  JAMESON.  375 

was  anxious  that  opinions  that  had  been  promulgated  in  Eu- 
rope should  be  known,  and  exerted  herself  for  this  object, 
but  in  vain ;  she  found  she  could  do  nothing  for  this  cause 
always  so  dear  to  her,  and  on  which  subject  she  had  herself 
anticipated  ideas  now  popular,  and  had  had  previsions  of  the 
manner  of  their  execution. 

Before  leaving  Canada  Mrs.  Jameson  visited  remote  In- 
dian settlements.  Everywhere  she  found  people  who  enlisted 
her  ready  sympathy.  The  keen  observation  evinced,  and  her 
animated  descriptions  of  her  adventures  and  impressions  are 
delightful.  These  are  found  in  "  Winter  Studies  and  Sum- 
mer Rambles."  The  book  is  fertile  in  thought  and  food  for 
thought. 

Mrs.  Jameson's  departure  from  Canada  to  remain  perma- 
nently in  Europe  was  with  the  consent  of  her  husband ;  to  live 
in  Canada  was  impossible.  Sh'e  returned  with  vanished  hopes 
of  personal  happiness. 

Soon  after  her  return  Mrs.  Jameson  again  went  to  Germany. 
While  there  she  translated  the  dramas  of  the  Princess  Amelia 
of  Saxony  into  English,  writing  an  introduction  and  notes  to 
each  drama.  They  were  published  the  following  year  under 
the  title  of  "Social  Life  in  Germany."  In  1840  Mrs.  Jameson 
left  England,  intending  to  proceed  to  Italy;  and  again,  as  in 
1833,  returned  on  account  of  her  father's  failing  health.  She 
unselfishly  would  not  leave  him  while  her  presence  could  in 
any  way  be  serviceable  to  him.  About  this  time  Mrs.  Jameson 
commenced  a  new  book.  It  was  the  one  which  formed  her  first 
contribution  to  the  literature  of  art.  It  was  published  in  1841, 
entitled  the  "  Companion  to  the  Galleries  of  Art,"  being  a 
descriptive  and  critical  catalogue  of  the  private  art  collections 
in  London.  Later,  Mrs.  Jameson  increased  the  reputation 
which  this  excellent  work  gave  her  by  writing  a  "  Handbook  to 
the  Public  Galleries  of  Art  in  and  near  London." 

The  autumn  of  1841  was  spent  by  Mrs.  Jameson  in  Paris, 
studying  early  art  in  all  its  forms  as  a  preparation  for  the  work 
by  which  her  Handbook  was  followed,  —  a  series  of  biograph- 
ical notices  of  the  early  Italian  painters,  commencing  with 


OUR    GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

Cimabue  and  ending  with  Bassano.  These  appeared  in  the 
"  Penny  Magazine,"  and,  afterwards  collected  into  one  small 
volume,  were  very  popular.  The  volume  was  translated  into 
French  in  1862  and  published  in  Paris. 

In   1845,  in  order  to  fit  herself  more  adequately  for  a  work 
she  had  long  thought   of,  Mrs.   Jameson  went  abroad.     This 
time  no  call  from  home  caused  her  to  hasten  back.     Shortly 
after   her  return  a  collection  of  her   fugitive  papers  was  pub- 
lished.    Among  them  is  that  wonderfully  true  picture  of  Ven- 
ice, the  "  House  of  Titian  ;  "   also  an  excellent  essay,  "  Woman's 
Position  and  Woman's  Mission  ;  "  and  another  "  On  the  Relation 
of  Mothers  and  Governesses."     This  delicate  subject  is  treated 
with  much  wisdom.     These  papers  were  among  her  first  liter- 
ary contributions  to  the  discussion  of  social  science.     Notwith- 
standing that  since  1842  Mrs.  Jameson  had  been  engaged  on  so 
many  diverse  subjects,  she  had  also  been  making  progress  with 
her   laborious   and    important  work,    "Sacred    and    Legendary 
Art."     The  first  portion  of  the  series  was  brought  out  in  1848. 
She  describes  it  herself  "  as  containing  an  account  of  the  lives, 
legends,  habits,  and  attributes  of  the  sacred  personages  whose 
stories  have  been  illustrated  in  the  pictures  and  sculptures  of 
the  Middle  Ages."     This  work  was  looked  for  with  eager  antici- 
pation, long  before  its  appearance,  by  all  interested  in  the  sub- 
ject.    Two  years  later  the  second   part,  entitled  "  Legends  of 
the  Monastic   Orders,"  appeared;    and  in    1852  was  published 
the  third  volume,  "  Legends  of  the  Madonna."     In  the  preface 
Mrs.  Jameson  says,  "  If  the  sphere  of  enjoyment  in  works  of  art 
has  been  enlarged  and  enlightened,  I  shall  have  done  all  I  ever 
v/ished,  all  I  ever  hoped  to  do."     The  volumes  are  rich  in  etch- 
ings and  sketches  by  the   author  and  her  niece   of  the  best 
pictorial  representations  of  the  histories  and  legends  given,  — 
the  progress  of  art  is  shown  while  its  mysterious  symbolical 
character  is  explained.     This  work  brought  Mrs.  Jameson  ex- 
pressions  of   gratitude   and   pleasure    from    all    quarters.     The 
next  book  published,  "  A  Commonplace  Book  of  Thoughts,"  is 
divided  into  two  parts,  one  bearing  on  ethics  and  character,  the 
other  on  literature  and  art     It  is  full  of  gems  of  thought.     The 


MRS.  JAMESON.  377 

suggestions  of  subjects  suitable  for  sculpture  and  the  treatment 
appropriate  are  worthy  of  consideration  by  artists. 

Early  in  1851  Mrs.  Jameson's  friends  h^d  obtained  that  her 
name  should  be  placed  on  the  civil  list,  and  in  July  the  Queen 
was  pleased  to  grant  Mrs.  Jameson  a  pension  of  ^100  a  year. 
Her  interest  in  the  large  collection  of  works  of  art  brought 
together  in  the  Exhibition  of  1851  was  great.  She  undertook 
to  write  a  "  Guide-book  to  the  Court  of  Modern  Sculpture," 
afterwards  republished  in  1854. 

In  1852  the  education  of  the  masses  was  much  in  her  mind, 
more  especially  the  bettering  of  the  condition  of  the  women  and 
children  of  the  poorer  classes.  She  was  present  at  the  educa- 
tional conference  held  at  Birmingham  ;  her  opinion  of  the  value 
of  a  woman's  opinion  on  matters  concerning  the  education  and 
welfare  of  children  is  interesting. 

In  October,  1854,  in  the  "Edinburgh  Review,"  appeared  a 
paper  on  the  "  Life  of  Haydon,  by  Tom  Taylor,"  which  paper 
has  been  deservedly  noticed  for  its  vigor  of  style  and  feminine 
delicacy  of  appreciation. 

The  year  1854  was  one  of  great  sorrow  to  Mrs.  Jameson,— 
she  lost  the  gentle  mother  to  whom  she  was  so  tenderly  at- 
tached. Later  pecuniary  affairs  threatened  to  embarrass  her. 
This  fact  becoming  known,  a  number  of  friends,  unsuspected, 
collected  a  sum  wherewith  an  annuity  was  secured  to  Mrs. 
Jameson  for  her  lifetime.  The  manner  in  which  this  thought- 
ful token  of  esteem  was  received  was  characteristic  of  a  fine 
nature.  Mrs.  Jameson  found  it  "  delightful  to  be  grateful." 

In  February,  1855,  Mrs.  Jameson  was  persuaded  to  give  a 
lecture  "  privately "  on  "  Sisters  of  Charity  Abroad  and  at 
Home."  It  was  afterwards  printed,  and  excited  great  attention, 
doubtless  exercising  influence  on  one  of  the  great  questions  of 
the  day;  it  was  an  earnest  endeavor  to  do  something  to  eman- 
cipate women  from  the  prejudices  which  had  hitherto  restricted 
the  development  of  their  finest  capabilities  for  happiness  as  well 
as  usefulness.  The  second  lecture,  the  "  Communion  of  La- 
bor," was  delivered  the  following  year,  after  Mrs.  Jameson's 
return  from  the  Continent,  where  she  had  spent  her  time  in 


OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

visiting  every  hospital  and  charitable  institution  to  which  she 
could  get  admission,  and  in  making  comparisons,  for  which' 
work  her  well-balanced,  unprejudiced  mind  peculiarly  fitted 
her. 

The  spring  of  1852  found  Mrs.  Jameson  again  in  Rome, 
making  additions  for  a  second  edition  of  the  "  Legends  of  the 
Pvladonna."  Later  she  was  in  Florence,  writing  a  review  of 
Vasari,  never  published.  In  1859  she  was  again  in  Rome,  the 
city  she  loved  so  dearly  and  knew  so  well,  working  hard  but 
with  failing  strength.  During  this  winter  she  had  commenced 
her  last  work,  the  volumes  that  were  to  complete  the  Sacred  Art 
Series,  the  "  History  of  our  Lord  and  of  St.  John  the  Baptist." 
Later  in  Florence,  though  ill,  she  continued  her  work,  her  "  one 
great  compensation  "  being  the  society  of  her  dear  friends  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Browning  and  one  or  two  others.  Afterwards  she  vis- 
ited Dresden,  then  hastened  home  to  attend  the  Social  Science 
meeting  at  Bradford,  where  papers  relative  to  the  employment 
of  women  were  read.  Mrs.  Jameson  joined  in  the  discussion 
that  ensued,  and  the  interest  that  she  excited  was  intense ;  every 
eye  was  eager  to  see  her,  and  every  ear  drank  in  her  thoughtful, 
weighty  words. 

During  the  next  three  months,  the  last  of  her  life,  Mrs.  Jame- 
son was  occupied  on  what  she  intended  as  the  concluding  work 
of  her  Sacred  Art  Series,  "  the  crown  of  the  undertaking," 
designed  to  show  how  art  has  tried  to  tell  the  history  of  our 
Lord.  Though  she  much  desired  to  do  so  for  the  sake  of  those 
dependent  on  her,  Mrs.  Jameson  was  not  destined  to  finish  this 
work. 

Early  in  March,  while  returning  from  the  British  Museum, 
she  was  caught  in  a  severe  snowstorm.  This  exposure  was  fol- 
lowed by  an  attack  of  bronchitis,  and  within  a  week  the  great, 
gentle  heart  of  this  noble  woman  and  earnest  worker  had  ceased 
to  beat.  She  was  buried  at  Kensal  Green  by  the  graves  of  her 
father  and  mother. 


THOMAS    HOOD. 


THOMAS    HOOD.  381 


THOMAS     HOOD. 

I  BORN  1799.    DIED  1845.] 

the  tombstone  of  Hood,  and  in  the  books  of  the  Record- 
ing  Angel,  are  inscribed  the  words,  "  He  sang  the  Song 
of  the  Shirt."  His  grave  is  in  Kensal  Green  Cemetery. 
That  city  of  the  dead  hides  in  its  underground  mansions  many 
mute  lips  that  in  life  spoke  eloquently,  many  right  hands  that 
at  the  bidding  of  the  inspired  brain  wrote  down  words  over 
which,  though  the  hands  are  coffin-dust  and  the  pens  they 
wielded  have  long  since  rusted  away,  thousands  of  readers  still 
laugh  or  weep.  No  laughter  had  ever  a  heartier  ring,  no  tears 
came  ever  more  truly  from  the  heart,  than  the  tears  and  laugh- 
ter the  world  owes  to  Thomas  Hood.  He  whose  years,  though 
few  in  number,  were  made  long  and  evil  by  suffering,  could 
sympathize,  as  the  healthy  in  body  never  would,  with  the 
afflictions  of  others.  He  whose  brave  heart  kept  its  cheerful- 
ness even  in  presence  of  the  lifted  dart  of  Death  was  not  a  man 
to  laugh  as,  in  print  and  elsewhere,  fools  have  so  often  laughed. 
The  mirth  of  Hood  was  the  mirth  of  a  soul  that  looked  on  life 
as  an  April  day,  and  enjoyed  with  infinite  zest  the  sunshine  that 
smiled  forth  between  the  showers 

It  may  seem  mistaken  to  claim  for  this  kindly  and  gentle 
spirit  a  place  in  our  English  Valhalla,  a  seat  among  the  throned 
immortals  who  shall  be  crowned  while  time  lasts  with  the  glory 
of  their  works  on  earth.  To  Hood  the  majority  of  critics 
would  assign  little  more  than  the  cap  and  bells  of  the  jester. 
He  benefited  humanity  by  no  invention,  say  they,  led  no  army, 
governed  no  empire,  was  neither  philosopher  nor  statesman, 
neither  the  author  of  great  events  nor  their  historian.  In  the 
utilitarian  balance  such  a  life  might  be  thought  hardly  worth 
the  weighing.  But  the  glory  of  Thomas  Hood  is  of  a  lustre 


382  OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

that  eyes  dazzled  by  the  glitter  of  gold  can  never  appreciate ; 
his  services  to  humanity  were  of  the  order  whose  praise  is 
heard  in  eternity  as  well  as  on  earth.  He  was  the  poet  of  the 
poor,  above  all  of  the  poor  who  are  women,  and  whose  sins 
and  sufferings  go  on  from  day  to  day  in  London,  that  living 
whirlpool  over  which  forever  hangs  a  thick  pall  of  smoke, 
as  if  man  were  grown  ashamed  of  the  city  he  had  fashioned 
and  would  fain  shut  out  its  streets  from  the  eye  of  God.  The 
poet  of  the  poor,  Hood  was  never  the  unreasoning  hater  of  the 
rich.  He  did  not  call  on  the  people  to  rise,  as  Samson  rose 
among  the  Philistines,  and  shake  to  pieces  the  Government 
under  which  they  lived.  With  a  voice  of  infinite  pathos  he 
spoke  to  Englishmen  who  were  wealthy  and  prosperous  of  the 
starving  needlewoman  laboring  in  her  garret,  Death  sitting  by 
her  side  and  waiting  for  the  stitch  that  should  be  the  last ;  of 
the  outcast  girl  looking  into  the  waters  of  the  Thames,  while 
the  very  wind  spoke  to  her  in  fiend-like  whispers,  and  shadowy 
forms  rose  up  blackly  from  the  black  depths  and  beckoned  her 
to  leap.  It  may  reasonably  be  doubted  whether  Howard  did 
so  much  for  humanity  as  has  been  accomplished  by  the 
"  Bridge  of  Sighs  "  and  the  "  Song  of  the  Shirt." 

Death  and  fame  came  to  Thomas  Hood  almost  together. 
For  twenty  years  he  had  held  his  place  among  the  rank  and 
file  of  literature,  earning  thereby  little  more  than  daily  bread 
and  the  applause  that  is  but  of  a  moment,  when,  in  ,1843,  the 
Christmas  number  of  "  Punch  "  electrified  its  readers  with  the 
"  Song  of  the  Shirt."  Those  wonderful  verses  went  from  news- 
paper to  newspaper,  as  in  old  times  the  beacon  fire  was  accus- 
tomed to  pass  from  hill  to  hill.  The  laurels  reaped  by  the 
author  were,  however,  barren,  and  the  sunshine  of  celebrity  had 
nothing  golden  in  its  beams.  With  the  new  year  was  born 
an  unlucky  publication  christened  "  Hood's  Magazine."  Mis- 
fortunes fell  thick  upon  both  periodical  and  editor,  and  the 
"  flashes  of  merriment "  that  the  latter  still  put  forth  came 
from  a  life  blackened  with  the  clouds  of  sickness  and  calamity. 
By  May  Hood  was  in  a  sick-room,  and  as  editorial  apology  for 
the  non-continuance  of  a  novel  he  had  commenced  sent  forth 


THOMAS    HOOD.  383 

a  drawing  of  "  a  plate  of  leeches,  a  blister,  a  cup  of  water-gruel, 
and  three  labelled  vials."  All  the  rest  of  that  year,  and  far 
into  the  spring  of  the  next,  the  light  of  life  still  flickered  on, 
sometimes  burning  up  brightly  enough  for  the  sick  man  to 
resume  his  pen,  sometimes  all  but  fading  away  into  eternity. 
"I  am  so  near  death's  door,"  said  Hood  on  one  occasion, 
"  that  I  can  almost  fancy  I  hear  the  creaking:  of  the  hinees." 

*  o  o 

The  3d  of  May,  1845,  saw  that  door  gently  opened  for  him, 
and  as  quietly  as  a  tired  child  falls  asleep  this  gentle  spirit 
passed  away  from  earth.  Angels  are  supposed  to  be  the  pecu- 
liar attendants  of  the  dying,  and  a  ministering  spirit  certainly 
watched  over  the  death-bed  of  Thomas  Hood.  It  was  his  wife, 
the  good  genius  of  his  career,  the  faithful  companion  of  his  few 
joys  and  lessener  of  his  many  sorrows ;  she  to  whom,  as  Mr 
Hall  tells  us  in  his  "  Book  of  Memories,"  Hood  once  wrote,  "  I 
never  was  anything,  dearest,  till  I  knew  you ;  and  I  have  been 
a  better,  happier,  and  more  prosperous  man  ever  since.  Lay 
by  that  truth  in  lavender,  sweetest,  and  remind  me  of  it  when 
I  fail."  When  the  last  sands  in  the  hourglass  of  life  were  fail- 
ing, this  devoted  wife  and  Death  leaned  together  over  the  worn 
frame  from  which  the  soul  had  all  but  escaped ;  and  as  the 
light  of  another  glory  than  that  of  earth  dawned  upon  the 
dying  poet,  she  heard  him  murmur,  "  O  Lord,  say,  Arise,  take 
up  thy  cross,  and  follow  me  !  "  A  few  months,  and  "  liking  not 
to  live  without  him,"  she  went  down  after  him  to  the  grave. 

Not  a  mere  jester  was  it  that  died  with  such  words  upon  his 
lips,  but  a  brave  and  kindly  spirit,  who  did  his  noble  duty  in 
the  battle  of  life,  and  who,  however  the  weight  of  his  own  cross 
might  press  upon  him,  had  constantly  a  heart  to  appreciate 
and  a  hand  to  relieve  the  sufferings  of  others.  There  is  noth- 
ing in  the  fame  of  Hood  over  which  any  descendant  of  his  can 
ever  blush.  He  wrote  much  that  was  calculated  to  make  the 
best  of  men  better,  not  a  line  that  could  by  any  possibility 
make  the  most  worthless  specimen  of  humanity  worse.  Nu- 
merous and  exquisite  as  are  his  poems,  there  are  two  that  in 
especial  shed  a  starlike  light  upon  his  memory.  While  London 
remains  a  city,  the  hearts  of  men  must  continue  to  be  stirred  by 
25 


384  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

the  "  Song  of  the  Shirt "  and  the  "  Bridge  of  Sighs."  The  one 
poem  is  in  some  sense  the  sequel  of  the  other.  In  this  vast 
metropolis,  where  the  worship  of  the  golden  calf  is  practised  on 
an  ever-increasing  scale,  it  is  the  poor,  and  not  the  idols,  that  so 
frequently  endure  the  fate  of  being  ground  to  powder.  These 
victims  are,  in  general,  girls,  —  uneducated  or  half-educated 
drudges,  whom  the  love  of  liberty  and  the  hatred  of  domestic 
service  have  driven  to  toilsome  and  ill-paid  modes  of  gaining 
their  daily  bread.  Year  by  year  their  numbers  increase,  year 
by  year  thousands  of  miserable  fates  and  faces  tell  us  how  swift 
is  the  descent  from  the  death-in-life  of  the  garret  to  the  hell  of 
the  streets.  Lest  we  should  be  over-zealous  in  casting  stones, 
lest  we  should  forget  that  forgiveness  turned  not  away  from  the 
sins  of  Magdalen,  Hood  showed  us  the  starving  woman  de- 
spairing, the  sinful  woman  dead.  "  One  more  unfortunate  "  is, 
perhaps,  the  most  pathetic  line  poet  ever  penned.  The 
thought  of  it  seems  to  turn  the  Thames  into  a  grave. 


CHARLES    DICKENS. 

[BORN  1812.     DIED  1870.] 

"TV/TANY  readers  of  Mr.  Forster's  "  Life  of  Charles  Dickens  " 
-*-*-•-  must  have  been  forcibly  struck  with  the  biographer's 
observation  that  future  generations  will  probably  be  more  apt 
than  our  own  to  discover  the  close  resemblance  in  genius 
between  the  great  painter  and  moralist,  Hogarth,  and  the 
author  of  "  Oliver  Twist."  The  observation  is  suggested  by  the 
brief  but  finely  discriminative  criticism  on  Hogarth's  pictures 
which  Mr.  Forster  has  set  down  from  his  recollections  of  a  con- 
versation with  Dickens,  of  the  highest  interest  for  the  immortal 
novelist's  admirers.  Its  truth  cannot  fail  to  be  felt  by  any  one 
who  is  familiar  with  Charles  Dickens's  writings.  There  is  in 
the  works  of  both  the  same  tendency  to  make  art  subserve  a 


CHARLES    DICKENS. 


CHARLES    DICKENS.  387 

purpose  of  a  higher  kind  than  mere  entertainment,  or  even  the 
satisfaction  of  the  natural  craving  of  the  cultivated  mind  for 
intellectual  and  moral  beauty.  More  than  that,  each  may  be 
said  to  have  originated  this  employment  of  the  imaginative 
faculty  in  his  own  field.  Hogar,th  was  a  story-teller  in  the 
strictest  sense  of  the  term ;  his  series  of  pictures  corresponded 
closely  to  the  novelist's  chapters ;  he  had  his  introduction,  his 
development,  his  sorrowful  or  happy  denouement,  as  the  case 
might  be.  And  in  all  this,  unlike  the  painters  of  his  own  time 
and  perhaps  of  every  other  time,  he  sought,  with  a  stern,  unfal- 
tering, and  yet  a  tender  hand,  to  inculcate  moral  truths  and  to 
exhibit  to  vice  a  terrible  forewarning.  Beyond  even  this,  he  knew 
how  to  touch  the  heart  of  the  spectator  with  a  peculiar  pity, 
traceable,  perhaps,  to  a  sense  of  the  common  weakness  of  men 
and  women  to  resist  temptation,  whether  by  reason  of  wretched 
training  or  natural  feebleness  of  purpose,  and  to  the  awful  nature 
of  the  inevitable  consequences  of  folly  and  crime ;  so  that,  by 
means  that  on  the  surface  sometimes  seem  to  be  hard,  cruel,  and 
cynical,  he  awakens  sentiments  of  the  truest  philanthropy. 

Whether  art  is  concerned  with  any  other  object  than  of 
yielding  delight  by  the  idealized  representation  of  nature,  and 
whether  a  work  of  art  is  not  sufficiently  justified  if  it  ministers 
to  our  sense  of  beauty,  are  questions  that  have  been  long 
debated,  and  never  brought  to  any  satisfactory  conclusion.  In 
regard  to  novels  "  with  a  purpose,"  as  they  are  called,  there 
have  not  been  wanting  critics  to  denounce  the  very  principle  on 
which  they  are  based.  It  has  been  complained  that  the  novel- 
ist's incidents  are  apt  to  be  obviously  strained  for  the  purpose  of 
enforcing  his  moral ;  and  it  has  been  said,  moreover,  that  the 
novelist's  pictures  of  life  being  of  his  own  creation,  as  well  as 
the  consequences  which  he  chooses  to  assign  to  given  lines  of 
conduct,  whether  of  a  good  or  an  evil  kind,  they  can  "  prove 
nothing,"  because  they  depend  upon  the  arbitrary  will  of  the 
inventor  of  a  mere  fable.  All  this,  however,  is  clearly  as  appli- 
cable to  Hogarth's  "  Marriage  a  la  Mode  "  as  to  the  stories  of 
Dickens,  in  which  wrongs  and  abuses  are  exposed  in  a  power- 
ful light  or  the  evils  of  selfish  isolation  are  brought  before  the 


383  OUR  GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 

mind  of  the  reader  in  vivid  colors.  After  all,  the  question 
seems  to  resolve  itself  into  the  truthfulness  of  the  work  and  the 
power  of  the  artist  to  impress  that  truthfulness  upon  the  mind. 
That  there  are  feeble  pictures  and  feeble  novels  "  with  a  pur- 
pose "  is  clear  enough ;  but  that  such  works  may  be  made  to 
serve  a  didactic  object,  not  only  without  any  injury  but  with 
positive  gain  to  their  artistic  qualities,  is  not  less  evident.  Any 
way,  the  popular  novelist  who  turns  his  attention  in  this  direc- 
tion wields  beyond  question  an  enormous  power  for  good. 
Fiction  is  at  once  the  most  captivating  and  the  most  popular  of 
all  forms  of  literary  art.  The  immediate  circulation  obtainable 
by  a  powerful  novel  is  ordinarily  far  beyond  anything  that  a 
mere  moral  treatise  could  hope  to  attain.  And  over  and  above 
that,  the  vast  majority  of  readers  are  far  more  capable  of  re- 
ceiving impressions  in  this  way  than  in  any  other.  The  ques- 
tion, therefore,  whether  it  would  be  justifiable  to  turn  his  great 
gifts  to  mere  purposes  of  amusement  was  one  likely  to  impress 
the  active  and  benevolent  mind  of  Dickens.  That  he  did  from 
a  very  early  period  of  his  career  seek  in  this  way  to  combat 
evil  and  to  encourage  good,  —  and  above  all  to  awaken  that 
sympathy  with  the  weak  and  helpless  which  is  the  first  condi- 
tion of  resolute  effort  for  their  benefit,  —  is  clear  to  all  readers 
of  his  writings ;  nor  should  it  ever  be  forgotten  that  as  the 
writer  of  stories  "  with  a  purpose  "  in  this  sense,  he  was  abso- 
lutely the  creator  of  a  new  kind  of  fiction.  In  the  abundant 
humor  and  genial  pleasantry  of  Fielding,  the  coarse  drollery  of 
Smollett,  the  glowing  imagination  of  Mrs.  Radcliffe,  or  even  in 
the  delightful  creations  and  the  innocent  fancy  of  Scott,  we 
look  in  vain  for  any  such  distinguishing  object.  The  author 
of  "  Oliver  Twist,"  in  brief,  is  the  inventor  of  moral  fiction  in 
which  the  ethical  teachings,  like  the  lessons  of  Nature  herself, 
are  spontaneous  and  unobtrusive,  yet  profoundly  convincing. 
This  is  a  very  different  thing  from  the  old  moral  story-book,  in 
which  virtue  inevitably  rose  to  civic  honors,  while  vice  always 
fell  a  victim  to  fire  or  shipwreck  or  devouring  lions  on  the  coast 
of  Africa.  Of  the  influence,  whether  direct  or  indirect,  of 
Dickens's  genius  in  this  way  we  have  since  had  abundant  exam- 


CHARLES  DICKENS.  389 

pies.  It  is  observable  in  the  powerful  fictions  of  Mrs.  Beecher 
Stowe,  no  less  than  in  Victor  Hugo's  immortal  story,  "  Les 
Miserables." 

There  is  no  more  interesting  task  than  that  of  tracing  the  his- 
tory of  Dickens's  career  down  to  the  formation  of  his  mind  in 
this  direction.  He  was  reared,  as  we  all  know,  in  a  family  circle 
in  which  straitened  circumstances  were  the  rule.  The  humble 
suburban  house  with  its  melancholy  little  forecourt  in  Land- 
port,  adjoining  Portsmouth,  is  still  to  be  seen  ir>  the  same  con- 
dition, apparently,  in  which  it  was  when  occupied  by  the  poet's 
father,  an  employe"  in  the  Navy  Pay  Office,  in  1812,  the  year  in 
which  Dickens  was  born.  He  was  from  the  first  a  sharp  lad, 
and  the  shifts  and  necessities  of  his  parents  painfully  impressed 
him  from  an  early  time,  as  the  successive  scenes  of  their  daily 
life  became  fixed  upon  his  memory.  He  had  sad  experiences 
of  those  most  mournful  of  localities,  the  pawnbroker's  shop  and 
the  inside  of  the  prison  in  which  his  father  was  confined  for 
debt.  Wandering  about  the  streets  of  London,  and  passing  to 
and  fro  between  his  forlorn  home  and  the  blacking  warehouse 
near  Hungerford  stairs,  where  he  was  "  a  poor  little  drudge,"  at 
an  age  when  now  even  the  children  of  the  poorest  of  the  poor 
are  required  by  law  to  be  at  school,  he  became  familiar  with 
misery  in  many  forms.  When  a  gleam  of  sunshine  came  and 
he  was  sent  to  school,  his  studies  were  too  brief  and  too 
desultory  to  be  deserving  of  the  name  of  education ;  and  even 
these  advantages  ceased  almost  within  the  period  of  childhood. 
It  was  at  the  age  of  fifteen  that  he  "  started  in  life,"  as  the 
phrase  is,  as  an  office-boy  in  an  attorney's  office, — a  poor  look- 
out for  an  ambitious  lad,  for  the  law  had  in  those  days  closed 
the  door  of  the  legal  profession  against  poor  men's  sons  even 
more  closely  than  in  these  times.  Charles  Dickens  had  so 
determined  a  will,  so  steady  a  power  of  application,  and  so 
remarkable  a  habit  of  throwing  his  whole  heart  and  mind  into 
any  work  that  he  undertook,  that  but  for  those  artificial  barriers 
it  is  most  likely  that  the  law  would  have  become  his  profession. 
But  it  had  been  sternly  enacted  that  no  one  should  enter 
the  legal  portals  without  a  preliminary  articleship,  the  official 


OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

record  of  which  must  bear  a  stamp  of  the  value  of  £120.  The 
articled  clerk  was  also  peremptorily  forbidden  to  receive  any 
remuneration  throughout  his  five  years  of  servitude,  and  even 
when  free  he  was  interdicted  from  practising  until  he  had  paid 
a  yearly  certificate  duty  of  £12.  In  the  attorney's  office,  there- 
fore, no  prospect  offered  itself,  and  the  bar  was  still  more  inac- 
cessible. Nothing  daunted,  the  lad  turned  his  thoughts  to  the 
profession  of  journalism,  which  at  least  was  open  to  the  clever- 
est and  most  deserving.  How  resolutely  he  went  to  work  to 
acquire  the  facility  in  shorthand  writing  necessary  for  the  post 
of  parliamentary  reporter  most  readers  know. 

The  story  of  this  period  of  Charles  Dickens's  life  is  one  of 
the  most  encouraging  to  young  men  dependent  on  their  own 
exertions  that  biography  offers.  Genius  is,  and  ever  must  be,  a 
rare  and  exceptional  gift ;  but  the  means  whereby  this  lad  rose 
to  a  position  in  which  his  great  powers  were  able  to  exert 
themselves  are  certainly  within  the  reach  of  average  talent  and 
opportunities.  The  sketches  which  under  the  pseudonym  of 
Boz  were  contributed  by  the  young  reporter  to  the  columns  of 
an  evening  paper,  and  afterwards  republished,  attracted  some 
attention.  They  display  his  powers  of  observation,  but  they 
are  in  a  considerable  degree  imitative.  The  influence  of  Theo- 
dore Hook  and  of  Hood  is  strongly  observable  in  them,  and, 
what  is  more  important,  they  exhibit  little  of  that  serious  pur- 
pose which,  even  amidst  their  abundant  humor,  is  so  conspicu- 
ous in  his  later  works.  To  satirize  the  habits  of  the  cockney 
of  those  days  —  the  spruce  city  clerk  on  his  holiday,  etc., 
the  humble  shopman  and  his  sweetheart  at  the  suburban  tea- 
gardens,  the  servant  girls  and  apprentice  boys  at  Greenwich 
Fair  —  were  the  common  objects  of  the  writers  of  sketches  in 
the  magazines  of  the  time ;  and  "  Boz  "  simply  fell  in  with  the 
fashion  of  the  hour.  In  the  sketches  of  London  street  life 
there  is  indeed  indication  of  that  marvellous  observation  and 
sympathy  with  the  habits  and  pursuits  of-  the  poor  of  London 
which  afterwards  attained  so  remarkable  a  development.  It  is 
more  curious  still  to  observe  the  influences  of  a  literary  fashion 
in  the  origin  and  history  of  his  first  great  work,  "  Pickwick." 


CHARLES   DICKENS.  391 

In  the  satire  upon  the  conduct  of  breach  of  promise  actions  in 
the  famous  trial  scene,  in  the  pictures  of  the  inside  of  the  old 
disorderly  debtors'  prison,  and  in  the  pathetic  element  of  some 
of  the  little  stories  introduced  into  the  work,  we  have  a  gleam, 
as  it  were,  of  the  distinguishing  qualities  of  his  future  novels. 
The  cheerful  companionship  and  overflowing  good-nature  of 
the  scenes  at  the  hospitable  Kentish  farmhouse,  moreover, 
could  never  have  been  depicted  by  a  misanthropic  hand.  But, 
after  all,  "  Pickwick  "  cannot  be  said  to  have  had  any  more  seri- 
ous purpose  than  that  of  producing  innocent  merriment.  The 
book,  indeed,  was  the  direct  product  of  a  merely  conventional 
sort  of  humor  then  greatly  in  favor  with  the  public.  Its  inspir- 
ing principle  was  simply  that  habit  of  making  fun  of  cockneys, 
and  above  all  of  cockney  sportsmen,  which  was  so  conspicuous 
in  the  productions  of  the  artistic  and  literary  caricaturists  of  the 
days  of  King  William. 

In  order  to  understand  the  true  origin  of  "  Pickwick,"  —  the 
first  work  that  made  its  author  famous,  —  it  is  worth  while  to 
trace  the  history  of  this  odd  fashion.  It  was  in  the  year  1831 
that  the  old  laws  which  aimed  at  confining  field  sports  exclu- 
sively to  the  most  wealthy  and  aristocratic  class  were  first 
relaxed.  Before  that  time  the  conditions  of  carrying  a  gun  in 
pursuit  of  game  were  almost  prohibitive,  and  even  the  buying 
and  selling  of  game  were  strictly  forbidden.  The  new  law 
certainly  did  not  make  sporting  a  poor  man's  pastime;  but 
the  sight  of  even  a  middle-class  sportsman  had  hitherto  been 
so  rare  that  the  new  order  of  things  seems  to  have  struck  the 
minds  of  contemporary  humorists  as  something  exceptionally 
anomalous  and  absurd.  Hence  for  long  after  that  time  our  wits, 
both  great  and  small,  were' never  tired  of  making  fun  of  the  sup- 
posed blunders  and  mishaps  of  the  typical  citizen  —  generally 
assumed,  by  way  of  heightening  the  jest,  to  be  a  "  soap-boiler's 
clerk  "  —  who  was  of  a  mind  to  go  forth  in  quest  of  game.  The 
localities  of  the  cockney  sportsman's  achievements  were  repre- 
sented as  rarely  going  farther  afield  than  Hornsey  Wood  or  the 
meadows  which  then  existed  about  Copenhagen  House,  Isling- 
ton, now  a  populous  neighborhood  of  houses  and  shops.  It 


OUR  GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 

was  considered  real  humor  to  depict  him  as  firing  at  ducks  and 
hens  in  a  dairyman's  yard,  or  shooting  gypsy  babies  in  a  hedge 
in  mistake  for  hares.  When  he  was  shown  as  flying  from  the 
approach  of  an  infuriated  bull,  and  plumping,  in  his  distress, 
into  the  very  middle  of  a  gardener's  cucumber  frame,  or  seek- 
ing refuge  on  the  top  of  a  wall  thickly  garnished  with  tenter- 
hooks, while  a  stout  farmer  was  rapidly  approaching  flourishing 
a  cart-whip,  the  humor  was  no  less  certain  to  be  applauded. 
If  a  companion  inquired  diffidently,  "  Which  do  you  put  in  first, 
the  shots  or  the  powder?"  he  was  represented  as  answering, 
"  Why,  you  mix  them,  to  be  sure."  Even  when  he  was  seen, 
as  in  one  of  Seymour's  most  approved  sketches,  scattering  his 
brains  over  a  stubble  field  by  the  accidental  bursting  of  a  gun, 
there  was  still  no  pity  for  the  imaginary  cockney  sportsman. 
When  a  collection  of  these  once  popular  objects  of  the  print- 
shop  windows  were  republished  a  few  years  ago,  it  was  found 
that  their  power  to  amuse  had  almost  entirely  evaporated.  In 
truth,  it  never  had  much  foundation  beyond  the  novelty  held  in 
the  idea  of  any  person  connected  with  towns  and  trade  shoul- 
dering a  gun  on  the  1st  of  September,  and  the  supposed  wild 
incongruity  of  the  associations  suggested,  though  traces  of  this 
bygone  fashion  are  observable  in  the  early  sketches  of  John 
Leech  and  also  in  the  earlier  volumes  of  "  Punch." 

Publishers  are  not  slow  to  conform  to  the  prevailing  fancies 
of  readers,  and  hence  it  occurred  to  Messrs.  Chapman  and  Hall 
to  avail  themselves  of  the  services  of  the  popular  Seymour,  who 
engaged  to  furnish  them  with  four  sketches  monthly ;  that  upon 
this  they  looked  about  for  a  writer  to  furnish  the  necessary  sup- 
ply of  letterpress,  and  naturally  thought  of  the  author  of  the 
"  Sketches  by  Boz,"  who  had  exhibite'd  sympathy  with  the  fash- 
ion of  the  day,  are  facts  that  have  often  been  told ;  but  it  is  not 
generally  so  clearly  perceived  that  in  its  origin  at  least  Sey- 
mour was  regarded  as  the  predominant  collaborator.  An  ab- 
surd controversy  raged  some  years  ago  regarding  the  relative 
shares  in  "  Pickwick  "  of  the  original  artist  and  the  author.  It 
was  then  established,  no  doubt,  that  the  benevolent  bald  head 
and  those  most  respectable  limbs  encased  in  black  shorts  were 


CHARLES  DICKENS.  393 

the  happy  inspiration  of  the  unfortunate  artist;  but  Seymour, 
as  is  well  known,  died  before  the  appearance  of  the  second 
monthly  number,  and  the  truth  is  that  even  before  then  the 
whole  character  of  the  project  was  becoming  changed  under  the 
influence  of  Dickens's  genius.  The  first  number  appeared  on 
the  3ist  of  March,  1836.  It  was  announced  as  the  "  Posthu- 
mous Papers  of  the  Pickwick  Club,  containing  a  faithful  record 
of  the  perambulations,  perils,  adventures,  and  sporting  transac- 
tions of  the  Corresponding  Members."  Each  number  was  to 
comprise  four  illustrations  by  Seymour,  and  twenty-four  pages 
of  letterpress.  The  advertisements  also  stated,  in  the  mild  form 
of  fun  then  in  vogue,  "  that  the  travels  of  the  members  ex- 
tended over  the  whole  of  Middlesex,  a  part  of  Surrey,  a  portion 
of  Essex,  and  several  square  miles  of  Kent,"  and  it  was  prom- 
ised that  the  narrative  would  show  "  how  in  a  rapid  steamer 
they  smoothly  navigated  the  placid  Thames,  and  in  an  open 
boat  fearlessly  crossed  the  turbid  Medway."  "  Phiz  "  was  en- 
gaged to  take  the  place  of  Seymour ;  the  proportions  were 
changed  to  two  illustrations  instead  of  four,  and  thirty-two 
pages  of  letterpress  instead  of  twenty-four.  The  club  was  also 
rapidly  dropped,  and  the  adventures  of  Mr.  Pickwick  soon 
acquired  the  new  form  in  which  it  was  destined  to  become  so 
widely  known. 

It  is  a  surprising  evidence  of  the  fertility  of  invention  and 
self-confidence  o'f  the  young  author  that  it  was  at  that  time  that 
he  undertook  the  editorship  of  "  Bentley's  Miscellany,"  in  which 
his  "  Oliver  Twist"  —  the  most  powerful,  perhaps,  certainly  the 
most  terrible  in  its  stern  moral  lessons,  and  the  most  pathetic 
in  its  pictures  of  human  failing  and  human  suffering,  of  all  his 
stories  —  first  made  its  appearance.  "  Pickwick  "  and  "  Oliver 
Twist,"  in  fact,  were  written  together  month  by  month,  nor 
does  the  author  appear  at  any  time  to  have  been  much  in 
advance  of  the  printer's  demand  for  manuscript.  "Pickwick's" 
monthly  "  green  leaves  "  never  failed  to  make  their  appearance 
for  the  twenty  months  of  its  career ;  the  "  Parish  Boy's  Prog- 
ress," however,  was  certainly  once  interrupted,  for  in  the  month 
of  June,  1837,  an  apology  appeared  in  the  magazine  for  the 


394  OUR    GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

omission  of  the  usual  instalment,  on  the  ground  of  the  sudden 
death  of  a  dear  young  relative  to  whom  he  was  passionately 
attached.  The  inspiring  principle  of  "Oliver  Twist"  was  a 
noble  one ;  it  was  that  of  compassion  for  the.  poor  under  the 
hardships  inflicted  upon  them  by  the  new  Poor  Law  Act  just 
then  coming  into  operation.  Dickens,  it  must  be  admitted,  was 
quick  to  judge,  being  quick  to  feel.  He  probably  knew  but 
little  of  the  evils  of  the  old  poor-law  administration,  which 
had  grown  until  they  had  finally  necessitated  the  application 
of  some  sharp  remedy.  Great  changes  of  that  kind,  however 
wholesome  in  principle  and  beneficial  in  their  ultimate  objects, 
were  not  to  be  effected  without  inflicting  some  injustice ;  but  it 
seems  certain  that  the  changes  in  progress  were  accomplished 
in  too  many  instances  by  wanton  harshness.  The  papers  were 
filled  with  complaints  of  "  the  Bastiles,"  as  the  union  workhouses 
were  called,  and  Dickens's  heart  was  touched  and  his  imagination 
fired  by  this  theme.  Happily  the  profound  truthfulness  of  his 
creations  saved  him  from  doing  injustice  to  any  class.  If  there 
was  exaggeration  in  his  views,  his  pictures  of  life  are  still  sound. 
From  that  time  a  purpose  other  than  mere  entertainment 
rarely  failed  to  be  discernible  in  his  works.  In  that  wonderful 
panorama  of  life  and  most  affecting  narrative,  the  "  Old  Curios- 
ity Shop,"  we  find  in  "  Kit "  the  first  of  those  portraits  of  poor 
neglected  street  boys,  for  whom  he  was  able  to  enlist  so  strong 
a  sympathy ;  and  what  can  move  compassion  towards  the  poor 
more  deeply  than  his  scenes  of  life  in  the  manufacturing  towns 
and  districts  whither  the  child  wanders  with  the" old  man?  In 
"  Barnaby  Rudge "  how  fine  a  lesson  is  administered  on  the 
folly  and  sin  of  religious  hatreds !  Special  evils  are  attacked,  as 
all  readers  know,  in  many  other  of  his  novels ;  but  the  general 
purpose  of  mitigating  that  harshness  which  arises  from  igno- 
rance of  what  is  good  and  deserving  of  sympathy  in  others,  is 
predominant  in  all  his  works.  It  was  this  fact,  apart  from 
his  singularly  impressive  voice  and  highly  studied  yet  thor- 
oughly natural  delivery,  which  gave  to  his  readings  so  fasci- 
nating a  character,  and  rendered  them  so  popular  both  in 
England  and  America. 


ROBERT    BURNS. 


ROBERT   BURNS.  397 

The  life  of  Charles  Dickens  is  too  large  a  theme  to  be  treated 
here  save  ufider  one  such  aspect  as  we  have  taken.  It  is  to  be 
read  in  Mr.  Forster's  interesting  and  elaborate  but  still  insuffi- 
cient biography,  and  in  the  collection  of  his  correspondence 
under  the  editorship  of  his  eldest  daughter.  It  is  further  to  be 
read  in  his  works  themselves.  Nearly  fourteen  years  have  now 
elapsed  since  his  -death.  The  terrible  railway  accident  at  Sta- 
plehurst  to  the  tidal  train,  in  which  he  happened  to  be  a 
passenger,  had  given  to  his  system  a  great  shock.  Railway 
travelling  from  henceforward  seems  to  have  affected  his  nerves 
in  a  curious  degree.  The  sad  scenes  of  lingering  suffering  and 
death  which  he  witnessed,  too,  on  that  occasion,  had  impressed 
his  mind  with  a  horror  which  he  often  recalled  with  painful 
feelings.  It  is  a  singular  coincidence  that  his  strikingly  sudden 
death  took  place  on  the  anniversary  of  that  disastrous  accident, 
just  five  years  later,  —  that  is,  on  the  Qth  of  June,  1870.  Since 
then  his  vast  reputation  has  assuredly  undergone  no  diminution. 
Cheaper  editions  of  his  works  have  brought  them  within  the 
range  of  countless  readers  everywhere.  Certainly  no  other  au- 
thor ever  enjoyed  in,  his  lifetime  so  great  and  so  long-sustained 
a  popularity ;  but  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  the 
fame  of  Charles  Dickens  is  destined  to  grow  brighter  yet. 


ROBERT  BURNS. 

[BORN  1759.    DIED  1796.] 


"  T  ET  me  write  the  songs  of  a  people,  and  I  care  not  who 
•*-'  make  the  laws,"  is  an  observation  shrewdly  applicable 
to  the  genius  of  Robert  Burns.  Where  indeed,  upon  the 
broad  roll  of  names  eminent  in  song,  is  there  to  be  found  a 
national  poet  whose  memory  is  so  tenderly  cherished  by  his 
countrymen  as  is  that  of  the  humble  Scottish  bard?  Where  is 
there  another  whose  simple  lays  are  so  often  on  the  lips  or  so 


398  OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

highly  treasured  as  his?  Wherever  you  find  a  Scot  his  eye 
lights  up  at  the  mere  mention  of  the  name  of  Burns.  A  cen- 
tury has  rather  increased  than  diminished  the  warm  love  and 
admiration  in  which  the  poet  is  held  by  the  great  mass  of  his 
countrymen,  who  celebrated  the  centennial  anniversary  of 
Burns's  birth  with  enthusiasm  all  over  the  civilized  world.  But  it 
is  not  alone  to  Scotland  that  the  fame  of  Robert  Burns  belongs. 
"  Tarn  o'  Shanter "  and  the  "  Cotter's  Saturday  Night "  are 
domesticated  in  the  literature  of  all  English-speaking  peoples, 
there  to  constantly  renew  their  youth  when  the  pretty  trifles  that 
to-day  make  reputations  shall  have  outlived  their  brief  hour  of 
popular  favor. 

Burns  was  born  in  the  parish  of  Alloway,  near  Ayr,  on  the 
*25th  of  January,  1759.  His  father  was  a  poor  farmer  who  gave 
his  son  what  education  he  could  afford.  Robert  was  taught 
English  well,  and  "  by  the  time  he  was  eleven  or  twelve  years  of 
age,  he  was  a  critic  in  verbs,  substantives,  and  particles."  He 
was  also  taught  to  write,  had  a  fortnight's  French,  and  had  ob- 
tained a  little  practical  knowledge  of  land-surveying.  He  had  a 
few  books,  among  which  were  the  Spectator,  Pope's  works, 
Allan  Ramsay,  and  a  collection  of  English  songs.  His  reading 
was  subsequently  extended  to  Thomson,  Sterne,  Shenstone, 
Mackenzie,  and  other  standard  authors.  This  was  the  whole 
foundation  upon  which  the  young  poet  was  to  build  a  reputa- 
tion that  should  outlast  the  groundwork.  As  the  advantages 
of  a  liberal  education  were  not  within  his  reach,  it  is  scarcely  to 
be  regretted  that  his  reading  was  at  first  so  limited  in  its  range. 
His  mind  was  not  distracted  by  a  multitude  of  volumes.  What 
books  he  had,  he  read  and  studied  thoroughly,  and  his  mind 
grew  up  with  original  and  robust  vigor.  It  is  impossible  to  con- 
template the  life  of  Burns  at  this  time  without  a  strong  feeling 
of  affectionate  admiration  and  respect.  "  His  manly  integrity  of 
character  (which,  as  a  peasant,  he  guarded  with  jealous  dig- 
nity) and  his  warm  and  true  heart  elevate  him,  in  our  concep- 
tions, almost  as  much  as  the  native  force  and"  beauty  of  his 
poetry."  We  see  him  when  a  mere  youth  toiling  "  like  a  galley- 
slave  "  to  support  his  parents,  yet  grasping  at  every  chance  of 


ROBERT   BURNS.  399 

acquiring  knowledge  from  men  and  books.  Burning  with  a 
desire  to  do  something  for  Old  Scotland's  sake,  whose  very 
soil  he  worshipped,  venerating  the  memory  of  her  ancient  pat- 
rons and  defenders,  filled  with  an  exquisite  sensibility  and 
kindness  that  could  make  him  weep  over  even  the  destruction 
of  a  daisy  of  the  field  or  a  mouse's  nest,  —  these  are  all  moral 
contrasts  and  blendings  that  seem  to  belong  to  the  spirit  -of 
romantic  poetry.  His  writings,  as  we  know,  were  but  the  frag- 
ments of  a  great  mind,  the  hasty  outpourings  of  a  full  heart  and 
intellect.  'When  fame  had  at  last  lifted  him  to  the  insecure  and 
dangerous  place  of  a  popular  idol,  —  soon  to  be  thrust  down 
again  into  poverty  and  neglect,  —  some  errors  and  some  frail- 
ties cast  a  shade  over  the  noble  figure ;  but  with  the  clearing 
away  of  prejudice,  envy,  and  uncharitableness,  time  has 
graciously  restored  to  Burns  the  love  and  gratitude  of  his 
countrymen ;  for,  great  as  were  his  temptations  or  his  frailties, 
the  world  has  recognized  that  the  inward  instincts  of  the  man 
were  large,  generous,  and  noble.  Let  us  draw  the  veil  over 
these  frailties.  He  indeed  suffered  an  earthly  martyrdom,  but 
he  has  been  awarded  a  posthumous  triumph. 

After  the  publication,  in  1773,  of  Fergusson's  collected  poems, 
there  was  an  interval  of  about  thirteen  years  during  which  no 
writer  of  eminence  had  arisen  who  attempted  to  excel  in  the 
native  language  of  the  country.  In  the  summer  of  1783 
Robert  Burns,  the  "  Shakspeare  of  Scotland,"  issued  his  first 
volume  from  the  obscure  press  of  Kilmarnock.  Its  influence 
was  immediately  felt,  and  that  influence  has  not  yet  ceased  to 
vibrate  in  the  hearts  of  the  Scottish  race.  Burns  was  then  only 
in  his  twenty-seventh  year.  No  poetry  was  ever  more  instan- 
taneously or  universally  popular  among  a  people  than  that  of 
Burns  in  Scotland.  There  was  the  humor  of  Smollett,  the 
pathos  of  Sterne,  the  real  life  of  Fielding,  and  the  pictorial 
power  of  Thomson,  —  all  united  in  an  Ayrshire  ploughman. 
So  eagerly  was  the  book  sought  after,  that,  when  copies  of  it 
could  not  be  obtained,  many  of  the  poems  were  transcribed 
and  sent  around  in  manuscript  among  admiring  circles  of 

readers.      The   subsequent    productions   of  the   poet   did    not 
26 


400  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

materially  affect  the  estimate  of  his  powers  formed  from  his 
first  volume.  His  life  was -at  once  too  idle  and  too  busy,  and 
it  was  also  too  brief,  for  the  full  development  of  his  extraor- 
dinary powers.  It  canmot  be  said  that  Burns  fails  absolutely  in 
any  kind  of  composition,  except  in  his  epigrams.  These  are 
often  coarse  without  being  entertaining.  Nature  had  been 
abundantly  lavish  to  him,  but  she  had  denied  him  wit.  Burns 
had  little  or  no  technical  knowledge  of  music.  His  whole  soul, 
however,  was  full  of  the  finest  harmony.  Not  a  bird  sang  in  a 
bush,  but  it  was  music  in  his  ear.  He  fell  in  love  with  every 
handsome  female  face  he  saw,  and  when  thus  moved  his  feel- 
ings took  the  form  of  song,  and  the  words  fell  as  naturally  into 
their  places  as  if  prompted  by  the  most  perfect  mastery  cf 
musical  rhythm.  A  lengthy  theme  wearied  and  chilled  his 
Muse;  but  a  song  embodying  some  burst  of  passion,  patriotism, 
love,  or  humor,  was  exactly  suited  to  the  impulsive  character  of 
Burns's  genius  and  to  his  situation  and  circumstances.  The 
Scottish  poet  knew,  however,  many  old  airs  and  more  old  bal- 
lads ;  and  a  few  bars  of  the  music  or  a  line  of  the  words  served 
as  a  keynote  to  his  suggestive  fancy. 

Burns's  incentive  to  composition  was  his  ardent  admiration 
for  the  fair  sex,  and  it  was  to  one  of  his  boyish  loves  that  his 
earliest  poetical  effusion  was  dedicated.  This  strain  of  admi- 
ration, which  in  him  became  an  element  of  weakness,  appears 
throughout  all  his  later  writings.  His  favorites  were  in  the 
humble  walks  of  life,  but  he  elevated  them  to  Lauras  and  Ophe- 
lias. Having  failed  in  attempting  the  business  of  a  flax-dresser 
and  in  farming,  Burns  brought  out  his  little  volume  of  collected 
poems  in  order  to  procure  the  means  of  emigrating  to  Jamaica. 
It  carried  him  instead  into  the  best  circles  of  Edinburgh,  in 
whose  adulation  the  poet  soon  lost  his  head.  The  brilliancy 
with  which  Burns  had  flashed  upon  the  society  of  Edinburgh, 
soon  suffered  a  partial  eclipse ;  but  the  attentions  that  he  had 
received  were  in  their  consequences  most  disastrous  to  the  poet's 
future.  He  contracted  habits  of  convivial  indulgence  which  in 
the  end  proved  fatal  to  his  prospects  of  advancement,  while  they 
steadily  undermined  his  constitution.  Burns  tore  himself  away 


ROBERT   BURNS.  4OI 

from  the  pleasures  and  gayety  of  Edinburgh  to  begin  again  the 
life  of  a  farmer.  Having  some  ^"500  in  ready  money  remain- 
ing from  the  sale  of  his  poems,  he  took  Ellisland  Farm,  near 
Dumfries,  and  settled  down  into  a  more  tranquil  existence.  At 
this  time  too  he  was  legally  married  to  Mrs.  Burns,  whose  con- 
nection with  the  poet  had  hitherto  formed  one  of  the  darker 
episodes  of  his  career.  His  old  habits  returning  upon  him, 
finding  that  farm  labor  and  its  demands  were  a  stumbling-block 
in  the  way  of  his  literary  ambition,  Burns  applied  for  and 
obtained  the  place  of  an  exciseman  for  the  district  in  which  he 
lived.  Abandoning  his  farm  to  the  care  of  servants,  Burns 
might  now  be  seen  mounted  on  horseback,  pursuing  defaulters 
of  the  revenue  among  the  hills  and  vales  of  Nithsdale.  The 
farm  was  soon  given  up,  and  Burns  removed  to  Dumfries. 
There  was  no  amendment,  and,  to  make  matters  worse,  Burns 
soon  fell  into  disgrace  with  the  Excise  Board  on  account  of 
his  political  opinions.  The  time,  it  will  be  remembered,  was 
one  of  great  excitement;  for  the  French  Revolution  was  then 
menacing  the  peace  of  Europe  and  turning  the  heads  of  the 
imaginative  and  enthusiastic  spirits  who  had  imbibed  socialistic 
ideas  from  the  false  philosophy  of  the  leaders  of  popular  opinion 
in  France.  Burns  was  too  independent  and  much  too  out- 
spoken for  a  placeman.  Some  of  his  imprudent  expressions 
were  reported  to  his  superiors ;  and  though  he  retained  his 
office,  all  hope  of  a  promotion  through  which  he  might  attain 
the  longed-for  life  of  literary  leisure  was  now  wrecked. 

From  this  time  the  poet's  wayward  fortunes  rapidly  declined. 
He  became  irritable  and  gloomy.  His  health  gave  way.  In 
the  summer  of  1796  he  was  attacked  with  fever,  which  on  the 
2  ist  of  July  terminated  fatally,  the  poet  then  being  in  his 
thirty-eighth  year. 


402  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE. 

[BORN  1804.     DIED  1864.] 

THE  career  of  this  great  novelist  conclusively  shows  us  how 
even  a  genius  of  the  first  rank,  such  as  his  unquestionably 
was,  may  long  fail  of  obtaining  the  recognition  that  is  its  due. 
There  is,  in  fact,  no  royal  road  to  literary  fame.  Yet  it  must  be 
clear  to  every  discriminating  and  impartial  student  of  Nathaniel 
Hawthorne's  career,  we  think,  that  his  discouragements  and 
his  trials  arose  in  most  cases  from  causes  •  inherent  in  the 
man  himself.  Indeed  the  deductions  essential  to  a  just  view  of 
Hawthorne's  life  and  work  are  easily  made  while  we  follow  the 
successive  steps  by  which  his  position  at  the  head  of  American 
writers  of  fiction  was  reached  at  last.  There  is  probably  no 
writer  whose  personality  seems  to  us  so  largely  mingled  with 
his  productions  as  Hawthorne's.  In  truth,  the  man  and  his 
work  are  inseparable  in  our  minds.  Sometimes  he  seems 
merely  repeating  to  us  the  things  he  has  seen  in  his  visions,  for 
he  was  ever  as  one  who  dreams  dreams  and  sees  visions ;  then 
again  his  intellectual  and  moral  insight  is  so  like  one  laying 
bare,  under  great  stress  of  circumstances,  the  inmost  secrets  of 
his  own  heart,  that  we  cannot  forbear  investing  him  with  the 
intelligence,  and  something  too  of  the  dread,  which  we  are  apt 
to  associate  with  clairvoyants.  From  this  we  conclude  that  few 
writers  have  had  such  power  of  self-absorption  in  their  own 
creations  as  Hawthorne  had,  and  that  it  is  for  this  reason  his 
strong  individuality  is  so  indelibly  stamped  upon  his  characters. 
Hawthorne's  novels  contain  a  few  scraps  of  autobiography;  his 
Note-Books  add  something  to  our  knowledge  of  him  ;  but  as 
his  character  was  full  of  strange  inconsistencies,  of  which  he, 
most  of  all,  seemed  sensible,  so  was  he  averse  to  having  his 
biography  written,  although  in  one  of  his  dreamy  monologues, 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE. 


NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE.  405 

when  he  seems  thinking  aloud,  he  conjectures  that  such  distinc- 
tion would  yet  be  his.  Materials  for  Hawthorne's  biography 
are  therefore  not  only  scanty,  but  fragmentary.  Intimate  per- 
sonal knowledge  of  the  man  could  not  be  claimed  by  the  most 
attached  or  the  most  trusted  of  his  friends.  It  is  therefore  to 
his  works  that  we  must  turn,  with  the  secret  feeling  that  they 
alone  delineate  Hawthorne  truly.  As  every  writer  has  his  liter- 
ary models,  so  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  Walter  Scott  and 
Charles  Lamb  were  the  models  upon  which  Hawthorne's  liter- 
ary style  was  formed.  These  were  the  men  who  had  most 
impressed  his  age.  He  soon  entered  a  field  in  which  his  own 
brilliant  imagination  was  supreme,  and  in  which  he  is  still 
without  a  peer. 

Nathaniel  Hawthorne  was  born  at  Salem,  Massachusetts, 
July  4,  1804.  The  family  surname  was  originally  Hathorne, 
which  was  altered  by  the  novelist  himself  while  he  was  a  college 
undergraduate.  His  ancestors  belonged  to  tfye  stern  old  Puritan 
stock,  and  one  of  them  had  been  a  conspicuous  figure  in  the 
witchcraft  horror.  The  house  in  which  the  novelist  was  born  is 
still  standing.  He  tells  us  that  "  thousands  upon  thousands 
of  visions  have  appeared  to  him  in  it,"  and  that,  should  he  ever 
have  a  biographer,  he  ought  to  make  great  mention  of  this 
house  in  his  memoirs,  for  it  was  here  that  he  kept  the  long  and 
weary  vigil  that  preceded  the  dawning  of  his  fame.  It  is  a 
humble  dwelling  in  a  quiet,  old-fashioned  neighborhood,  one  of 
scores  that  still  make  Salem  a  connecting  link  with  the  past. 
The  street  is  narrow,  and  runs  down  to  the  water-side  and  to  the 
wharves,  and  so  was  a  convenient  abode  for  the  novelist's  father, 
Captain  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  who  was  a  shipmaster  in  the  day 
when  Salem  was  a  port  of  importance.  House  and  wharves  alike 
indicate  the  decay  of  this  importance.  When  young  Hawthorne 
was  four  years  old  his  father  died  in  a  foreign  port,  and  the 
lad's  care  and  training  thenceforth  fell  to  his  mother,  who  after 
her  bereavement  went  home  to  her  father's  house.  Young 
Nathaniel  became  a  sort  of  protege  of  his  uncle,  Robert  Man- 
ning, who  took  charge  of  the  boy's  education.  The  Mannings 
were  owners  of  some  property  in  Raymond,  Maine;  and  when 


406  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Nathaniel  was  fourteen,  Mrs.  Hawthorne  took  her  children  and 
went  to  Raymond  to  live.  The  Hawthornes  remained  there 
only  about  a  year,  and  then  returned  to  Salem.  Hawthorne 
refers  with  unaffected  pleasure  to  the  wild  and  free  life  that  he 
led  while  roaming  through  the  woods  or  skating  by  moonlight 
on  Sebago  Lake.  But  he  also  regretfully  says  that  it  was  there 
he  got  "  his  cursed  habit  of  solitude "  which  clung  to  him 
through  life.  One  may  perhaps  see  in  this  habit  of  seclusion 
that  the  boy  was  "  father  to  the  man." 

At  seventeen  Hawthorne  entered  Bowdoin  College.  He  was 
a  member  of  the  now  celebrated  class  of  1825.  Two  benches 
behind  him  sat  young  Longfellow.  In  a  higher  class  was 
Franklin  Pierce,  with  whom  Hawthorne  formed  a  friendship 
that  lasted  through  life,  and  that  proved  of  much  advantage 
to  him,  for  Pierce,  too,  was  a  rising  man,  and  he  eventually 
became  Hawthorne's  patron ;  and  it  was  Pierce,  again,  who 
stood  by  Hawthorne's  solitary  death-bed  and  who  closed  his 
eyes  as  the  last  act  of  earthly  friendship. 

We  now  see  the  boy  changing  into  the  man.  Yet  to  his 
classmates  he  was  a  riddle.  He  seemed  to  have  an  existence 
apart  from  them,  at  most  times,  into  which  he  could  not  and  did 
not  admit  them.  One  of  them  says :  "  I  love  Hawthorne,  I 
admire  him ;  but  I  do  not  know  him.  He  lives  in  a  mysterious 
world  of  thought  and  imagination  which  he  never  permits  me  to 
enter."  Another  says  that  Hawthorne  never  told  a  story  or 
sung  a  song  while  he  was  in  college.  This  reserve  procured 
for  him  the  name  of  "  the  silent  man  "  among  his  classmates, 
who  seem,  nevertheless,  to  have  put  the  most  generous  inter- 
pretation upon  this  unsocial  disposition,  thus  paying  a  high 
tribute  to  Hawthorne's  superiority.  So  the  sensitive,  serious, 
and  shrinking  student  dwelt  in  a  world  apart  from  his  fellows. 
His  books  and  his  own  thoughts  were  his  chosen  companions, 
and  among  them  his  happiest  hours  were  passed. 

Notwithstanding  the  high  opinion  of  his  abilities  that  his 
classmates  had  formed,  Hawthorne's  scholarship  did  not  show 
great  excellence  or  give  high  promise  for  the  future.  He  did 
not  make  his  mark,  as  the  saying  is,  at  college.  Longfellow, 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  407 

and  not  Hawthorne,  was  the  conspicuous  figure  in  his  class ; 
for  the  latter  possessed  far  too  much  of  that  "  truant  disposi- 
tion," which  we  see  developing  more  and  more  as  the  years 
roll  on,  for  steady  application  to  study.  In  these  words,  which 
were  doubtless  penned  with  a  smile  on  the  lip  at  the  memories 
they  recalled,  Hawthorne  reminds  his  friend  Horatio  Bridge 
of  the  time  when  they  were  lads  together  at  this  country 
college,  "  gathering  blueberries  in  study  hours,  under  those  tall 
academic  pines ;  or  watching  the  great  logs,  as  they  tumbled 
along  the  current  of  the  Androscoggin ;  or  shooting  pigeons 
and  gray  squirrels  in  the  woods ;  or  bat-fowling  in  the  summer 
twilight ;  or  catching  trout  in  that  shadowy  little  stream  which, 
I  suppose,  is  still  wandering  riverward  through  the  forest ;  — 
two  idle  lads,  in  short  (as  we  need  not  fear  to  acknowledge 
now),  doing  a  hundred  things  that  the  faculty  never  heard  of  or 
else  it  had  been  the  worse  for  us." 

After  graduating  Hawthorne  returned  to  Salem,  and  for  some 
time  led  what  seemed  to  be  an  almost  purposeless  existence. 
Yet  it  is  evident  that  his  aspirations  already  pointed  toward  a 
literary  career.  For  him,  he  says,  the  learned  professions  had 
few  charms;  and  so  far  as  we  can  judge  it  seems  clear  that  his 
mind  was  steadily  settling  the  problem  of  his  future  vocation 
in  the  direction  of  literary  achievement.  He  began  writing 
anonymously  for  the  periodicals  of  the  day  those  tales  many  of 
which  he  has  told  us  were,  in  a  fit  of  despondency  or  despair, 
"burned  to  ashes."  The  "Gentle  Boy  "and  "Sights  from  a 
Steeple,"  were  first  printed  in  the  "  Token,"  an  annual  that  was 
conducted  by  Goodrich,  the  genial  "  Peter  Parley,"  who  so 
delighted  the  young  readers  of  a  generation  ago.  Among  its 
contributors  the  "  Token  "  numbered  such  well-known  writers  as 
John  Quincy  Adams,  Willis,  Everett,  Pierpont,  Neal,  Sedgwick, 
Sigourney,  and  Tuckerman ;  while  Longfellow  and  Holmes 
were  new  candidates  for  popular  favor.  Among  the  unknown 
contributors  was  Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 

Besides  these  fugitive  sketches  of  his,  which  had  been  chiefly 
drawn  from  the  traditions  or  associations  of  his  birthplace, 
Hawthorne  published  anonymously,  in  1832,  a  romance  en- 


408  OUR   GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 

titled  "  Fanshawe."  But  he  never  acknowledged  it,  and  this 
literary  foundling  has  only  recently  been  rescued  from  the 
limbo  to  which  its  author's  better  judgment  had  consigned  it. 
Hawthorne  had  been  writing  some  ten  or  twelve  years  without 
making,  as  he  frankly  avows,  the  slightest  impression  upon  the 
public.  Still  he  wrote  on.  His  young  manhood  had  been 
spent  in  the  pursuit  of  a  phantom  which  had  constantly  eluded 
his  grasp,  —  literary  celebrity.  If  we  may  believe  him,  he  had 
burned  much  more  than  he  had  published.  He  was  as  inex- 
orable as  the  Indian  who  puts  his  deformed  offspring  to  death. 
Yet,  in  spite  of  all  that  a  soul  so  sensitive  as  his  must  have 
endured  while  waiting  for  recognition,  Hawthorne  clung  to  his 
purpose  with  the  tenacity  of  one  who  feels  that  he  has  great 
things  within  him,  impelling  him  onward  at  the  sacrifice  of 
everything  else.  Others,  it  is  true,  have  possessed  this  per- 
sistency without  Hawthorne's  genius ;  but  this  author's  estimate 
of  himself  was  not  a  mistaken  one.  So  far  the  pleasure  that  he 
had  derived  from  literary  composition  was  his  greatest  reward  ; 
but  that  pleasure  alone,  he  declares  with  grim  irony,  will  not 
"  keep  the  chill  out  of  a  writer's  heart,  or  the  numbness  out  of  his 
fingers."  Finally,  Hawthorne  gathered  together  into  a  volume 
the  various  waifs  that  he  had  sent  forth,  and  offered  them  to  Good- 
rich for  publication.  It  is  said  to  be  true  that  Goodrich  declined 
to  print  the  volume  without  a  guaranty  against  loss ;  and  that  it 
might  never  have  appeared  at  all  but  for  the  generous  help 
of  Horatio  Bridge,  to  whom,  in  the  beautiful  dedication  to 
"The  Snow  Image,"  the  author  acknowledges  his  debt  of  grat- 
itude in  a  way  that  does  credit  to  both  head  and  heart.  In 
1837  the  volume  was  brought  out,  under  the  title  of  "  Twice- 
Told  Tales."  Longfellow  was  one  of  the  first  to  commend  it 
as  the  work  of  genius.  So  little  was  Hawthorne  known  that 
when  his  name  was  thus  publicly  announced  most  people 
supposed  it  to  be  fictitious,  and  not  the  author's  real  one. 
"  Twice-Told  Tales  "  was  accorded  a  favorable,  but  rather  lan- 
guid reception.  "  A  moderate  edition  was  'got  rid  of  (to  use 
the  publisher's  very  significant  phrase)  within  a  reasonable 
time,  but  apparently  without  rendering  the  author  or  his  pro- 


NAtHANlEL   HAWTHORNE.  409 

ductions  much  more  widely  known   than  before.     The  heart  of 
the  great  public  had  not  yet  been  touched. 

The  next  year  Hawthorne  received  the  appointment  of 
Weigher  and  Gauger  in  the  Boston  Custom  House.  In  this 
unromantic  capacity  he  continued  in  the  public  service  until  a 
change  of  administration  turned  him  out  of  office.  That  this 
change  brought  no  hardship  along  with  it,  is  pretty  clear  from 
a  perusal  of  one  of  Hawthorne's  letters  in  which  he  unbosoms 
himself  to  this  effect.  "  I  pray,"  he  says,  "  that  in  one  year 
more  I  may  find  some  way  of  escaping  from  this  unblest  Cus- 
tom House;  for  it  is  a  very  grievous  thraldom.  I  do  detest 
all  offices,  —  all  at  least  that  are  held  on  a  political  tenure. 
And  I  want  nothing  to  do  with  politicians.  Their  hearts  wither 
away,  and  die  out  of  their  bodies.  Their  consciences  are  turned 
to  india-rubber,  or  to  some  substance  as  black  as  that,  and 
which  will  stretch  as  much." 

From  this  most  irksome  and  prosaic  life  Hawthorne  now 
eagerly  turned  to  the  ideal.  Always  a  dreamer,  always  an 
ardent  lover  of  nature,  haunted  by  the  idea  of  a  perfect  Chris- 
tian brotherhood  that  should  be  lifted  high  above  the  debas- 
ing influences  of  the  great  world,  and  in  which  men  should  act 
according  to  the  dictates  of  a  pure  reason,  our  author  joined 
the  community  of  Transcendentalists  at  Brook  Farm.  This 
Brook  Farm  episode  was  only  the  echo  of  that  imagined  by 
Coleridge,  Southey,  and  a  few  others  like  them,  of  establishing 
on  the  banks  of  the  Ohio  a  community  founded  on  a  thor- 
oughly social  basis.  The  actors,  in  spite  of  merciless  ridicule, 
showed  the  courage  of  their  convictions  ;  but  the  daily  drudgery 
that  made  part  of  the  system  by  which  these  dreamers  expected 
to  revolutionize  society  proved  too  much  for  one  like  Haw- 
thorne, in  whom  intellect  was  supreme ;  and  so  he  came  back 
into  the  world  again,  a  wiser  if  not  a  better  man.  Man  in  his 
primitive  estate  was  not,  after  all,  what  he  had  imagined.  In- 
stead of  being  stimulated,  his  intellectual  faculties  were  stunted 
by  toil.  With  the  feeling  fresh  upon  him  that  he  had  escaped 
from  a  wholly  unsuitable  and  unnatural  life,  Hawthorne  sets 
down  this  emphatic  opinion:  "The  real  Me,"  he  says,  "was 


410  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

never  an  associate  of  the  Community."  The  future  novelist 
was  now,  after  this  experience,  building  more  air-castles  from 
the  materials  of  his  fancy;  and  this  time,  at  least,  they  were 
destined  not  to  fall  in  ruins  about  him. 

Very  likely  another  and  even  more  potent  influence  was 
contributing  to  draw  Hawthorne  back  into  the  world  again ; 
for  within  a  year  he  was  married  to  Miss  Sophia  Peabody,  of 
Salem,  whom  he  had  long  known  and  admired.  The  young 
couple  chose  a  home  at  Concord,  in  the  old  parsonage  house 
that  Emerson  had  formerly  inhabited,  but  which  was  soon  to 
become  more  famous  as  the  "  Old  Manse."  An  exquisite  pic- 
ture of  this  house  and  its  surroundings  forms  the  introduction 
to  the  "Mosses  of  an  Old  Manse."  The  doubly  famous  land- 
mark stands  within  musket-shot  of  the  first  battle-field  of  the 
Revolutionary  War,  and  from  its  windows  the  startled  occupants 
had  witnessed  the  brief  but  fateful  combat  begun  for  the  posses- 
sion of  the  bridge  that  here  spanned  the  historic  stream.  This 
fact  did  not,  however,  greatly  impress  Hawthorne,  who  frankly 
owns  to  being  little  moved  through  the  force  of  such  associa- 
tions as  these. 

The  "Old  Manse"  had  fixed,  however,  Hawthorne's  position 
in  the  literary  world.  From  this  period  the  biographer  has 
only  to  recount  his  successes.  After  a  three  years'  residence 
at  Concord  —  to  his  limited  circle  of  friends  as  great  an  enigma 
as  ever  —  Hawthorne  had  the  good  fortune  to  receive  from  a 
Democratic  administration  the  appointment  of  Surveyor  for  the 
Port  of  Salem,  and,  bidding  farewell  to  the  Old  Manse  and  to 
his  habitual  seclusion,  he  was  presently  installed  within  the 
edifice  which,  like  everything  else  with  which  Hawthorne's  gen- 
ius or  his  personality  is  associated,  was  thenceforth  destined  to 
live  forever.  From  the  Salem  Custom  House  emanated  that 
wondrous  story  of  sin,  remorse,  and  shame,  "The  Scarlet  Let- 
ter." Hawthorne  has  told  us  that  he  found  the  missive  from 
which  the  motive  of  his  novel  is  taken  in  an  obscure  corner  of  the 
Surveyor's  office.  The  sketch  of  "  Endicott  and  the  Red  Cross" 
contains  the  germ  of  this  story,  which  afterward  became  in  the 
author's  hands  the  work  generally  conceded  to  be  his  greatest. 


NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE.  411 

A  rare  faculty  of  individualizing  places  had  already  become 
one  of  Hawthorne's  marked  characteristics.  A  true  artist,  his 
pictures  are  always  so  finished  that  whether  it  be  an  old  house 
or  some  other  inanimate  object  that  he  is  describing  we  feel 
that  we  have  seen  it  with  all  the  power  of  Hawthorne's  imagina- 
tion. Then  his  houses  are  all  haunted,  which  strongly  contrib- 
utes to  make  us  consider  them  to  have  human  attributes  and 
human  functions. 

In  1850,  the  year 'in  which  "The  Scarlet  Letter  "  was  pub- 
lished, the  turn  of  the  political  wheel  again  dropped  the  Sur- 
veyor from  office.  He  soon  quitted  Salem;  for,  strangely 
enough,  after  his  arrival  at  manhood  he  had  never  any  liking 
for  the  place  that  was  so  intimately  associated  with  his  early 
struggles.  This  time  he  took  up  his  residence  at  Lenox,  in 
Berkshire.  Here  he  wrote  "The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables," 
a  romance  founded  upon  the  idea  of  a  family  that  is  predes- 
tined to  misfortune  through  the  wicked  deeds  of  a  wicked  ances- 
tor. It  is  therefore  of  the  same  gloomy  cast  as  "The  Scarlet 
Letter ;  "  but  the  same  subtile  power  of  analysis,  of  acute  de- 
scription, of  vigorous  beauty  of  style,  speedily  rendered  this 
work  a  rival  to  that  upon  which  Hawthorne's  renown  chiefly 
rests.  After  this  Hawthorne  went  back  to  Concord,  and  settled 
down  in  the  house  since  known  as  the  "  Wayside." 

The  next  event  in  Hawthorne's  life  —  for  between  whiles  he 
had  produced  the  "  Wonder  Book,"  "  Tanglewood  Tales,"  "  The 
Biithedale  Romance,"  and  the  "Life  of  Franklin  Pierce"-  — was 
the  appointment  by  his  old  friend,  now  President  Pierce,  to  the 
American  Consulate  at  Liverpool.  This  gave  Hawthorne  the 
coveted  opportunity  of  seeing  the  Old  World ;  for  it  is  known 
that  he  had  long  felt  that  the  field  in  which  he  had  achieved  his 
successes  was  too  narrow  for  him.  In  1857  he  resigned  his 
consulate,  and  for  the  next  two  or  three  years  travelled  on  the 
Continent,  making  a  considerable  sojourn  in  Italy.  From  this 
experience  came  "  The  Marble  Faun,"  Hawthorne's  third  great 
work  in  which  the  idea  of  secret  guilt  is  the  dominant  one. 
"  The  Italian  sky,  under  which  the  story  was  conceived,  seems 
to  have  imparted  to  it  a  degree  of  softness  and  beauty  wanting 


412  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

in  its  predecessors."  Yet  in  spite  of  what  Hawthorne  felt,  and 
has  expressed,  in  regard  to  the  difficulty  of  writing  romances 
about  his  own  country,  some  of  the  most  discriminating  of 
critics  have  declared  that  they  like  him  best  on  American 
ground.  Looking  to  him  as  being  peculiarly  the  product  of 
American  thought  and  training,  and  as  the  coming  exponent  of 
a  "  national  literature,"  they  could  not  agree  with  the  dictum 
that  "  romance  and  poetry,  ivy,  lichens,  and  wall  flowers,  need 
ruins  to  make  them  grow."  » 

Hawthorne  returned  to  his  native  country  crowned  with  hon- 
ors, but  not  so  strong  physically  as  when  he  had  left  it.  In  the 
retirement  of  his  home  at  Concord  he  settled  down  into  the  old 
life  and  its  quiet  ways ;  but  at  fifty-six  the  literary  tasks  that  he 
had  set  for  himself  were  no  longer  so  easy  of  accomplishment 
as  such  labors  had  once  seemed  to  the  younger  and  more  ambi- 
tious man.  His  melancholy  seemed  to  increase.  His  country 
was  now  convulsed  by  civil  war.  His  health  continued  steadily 
declining,  so  much  so  that  by  the  winter  of  1864  his  condi- 
tion was  causing  much  anxiety  to  his  family  and  friends.  In  the 
hope  of  improvement  Hawthorne  set  out  with  his  constant 
friend  Pierce  on  a  journey  to  the  White  Mountains  in  the  month 
of  May.  On  the  i8th  the  two  college  boys,  now  two  gray- 
haired  men,  reached  the  town  of  Plymouth.  Hawthorne  retired 
early  to  rest.  At  four  in  the  morning  Pierce  arose,  went  to  his 
friend's  bedside,  laid  his  hand  upon  him  gently,  and  found 
that  life  was  extinct.  The  body  was  brought  to  Concord. 
Longfellow,  Emerson,  Holmes,  Lowell,  and  many  other  literary 
friends  stood  around  the  bier  when  the  coffin  was  lowered  into 
its  final  resting-place  in  Sleepy  Hollow  Cemetery.  Upon  the 
coffin  was  laid  Hawthorne's  unfinished  romance,  of  which  Long- 
fellow has  so  beautifully  said,  — 

"  Ah,  who  shall  lift  that  wand,  of  magic  power, 

And  the  lost  clew  regain  ? 
The  unfinished  window  in  Aladdin's  tower 
Unfinished  must  remain." 


HENRY    W.    LONGFELLOW. 


HENRY  W.    LONGFELLOW.  415 


HENRY   W.   LONGFELLOW. 

[BORN  1807.     DIED  1882.] 

* 

TT  may  well  be  doubted  if  any  one  of  the  poets  who  have 
arisen  during   the  last  half-century  has  so  closely  touched 
the  great  popular  heart  as  Longfellow  has. 

Many  years  ago  Cardinal  Wiseman  used  this  language  when 
speaking  of  Longfellow :  "Our  hemisphere,"  said  he,  "can- 
not claim  the  honor  of  having  brought  him  forth ;  but  he  still 
belongs  to  us,  for  his  works  have  become  as  household  words 
wherever  the  English  language  is  spoken.  And  whether  we 
are  charmed  by  his  imagery,  or  soothed  by  his  melodious 
versification,  or  elevated  by  the  moral  teachings  of  his  pure 
muse,  or  follow  with  sympathetic  hearts  the  wanderings  of 
Evangeline,  I  am  sure  that  all  who  hear  my  voice  will  join 
with  me  in  the  tribute  I  desire  to  pay  to  the  genius  of  Long- 
fellow." 

If  the  true  grandeur  of  a  country  lies  in  its  illustrious  men, 
then  has  no  one  who  is  identified  with  letters  done  more  to 
exalt  the  American  name  at  home  and  abroad  than  this  emi- 
nent and  gifted  poet ;  nor  does  it  seem  at  all  likely  that  the 
severest  tests  of  time  will  lessen  the  love  and  admiration  with 
which  his  writings  have  inspired  the  present  generation  of 
readers. 

Longfellow  is  the  poet  whom  all  the  world  understands.  He 
is  no  mystic,  no  seer.  His  calm  philosophy  always  teaches 
some  worthy  or  enduring  lesson.  Even  the  rude  Village  Black- 
smith becomes  under  his  hand  an  exemplar  of  human  effort. 
His  themes  are  as  simple  as  his  language  is  the  perfection  of 
melody  and  grace.  If  the  right  word  is  always  a  power,  then 
may  this  poet's  exquisite  gift  of  language  well  stand  for  what  is 

highest  in  the  art  of  communicating  one's  ideas  to  others.     His 

27 


416  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

"  Psalm  of  Life."  his  "  Excelsior,"  simple  homilies  that  they  are, 
appeal  to  every  one,  however  humble,  who  may  have  had  or  is 
capable  of  feeling  an  aspiration  toward  what  is  highest  and 
noblest,  but  who  needs  the  guiding  hand  to  lead  him  on.  Like 
Abou  Ben  Adhem,  Longfellow  may  well  claim  to  be  written 
down  as  one  who  loves  his  fellowmen.  And  even  if  our  blood 
is  not  always  greatly  stirred  by  reading  Longfellow's  poetry,  it 
graciously  admits  us  into  a  sanctuary  conseqrated  to  the  purest 
and  holiest  emotions,  where  the  strifes  and  tumults  of  the  world 
pass  unheeded  by.  To  what  worthier  purpose  could  the  poet's 
art  be  directed?  He  does  not,  indeed,  seek  to  carry  our  hearts' 
by  storm,  nor  to  arouse  our  passions,  but  rather  to  conquer 
through  the  grace  of  an  abounding  love  for,  .and  faith  in  his 
fellow-man. 

As  a  story-teller  in  verse,  Longfellow  has  had  no  equal  in  his 
owrn  time ;  while  few  among  the  great  poets  of  the  past  are  his 
peers  in  the  power  of  interesting  or  of  entertaining  an  intelligent 
audience.  Witness  his  "  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn,"  as  an  exam- 
ple of  this  rare  gift.  We  do  not  know  whether  the  sonorous 
energy  of  rhythm  in  "  Paul  Revere's  Ride "  or  the  playful 
fancy  of  "The  Courtship  of  Miles  Standish"  charm  us  most. 
In  the  first  we  can  almost  feel  the  sting  of  the  spur,  as  Revere 
urges  his  excited  steed  on  over  the  rough  highway,  while  the 
rhythm  itself  keeps  time  to  the  quick  beat  of  hoofs,  as  the 
eager  horseman,  with  a  wild  shout  on  his  lips,  rides  at  head- 
long speed  through  village  and  farm,  bearing  his  fatal  message 
of  war;  and  notwithstanding  our  later  knowledge,  the  fear 
grows  upon  us,  as  we  read,  that  the  intrepid  rider  will  be  too 
late.  Such  ballads,  too,  as  "  The  Wreck  of  the  Hesperus,"  leave 
us  with  the  feeling  that  we  have  been  made  actual  lookers-on 
while  the  doomed  vessel,  with  the  frozen  helmsman  lashed  to 
the  tiller,  and  the  maiden  praying  on  the  wave-swept  deck,  was 
being  borne  steadily  on  to  her  destruction.  We  doubt  if  the 
realism  of  this  terrible  picture  has  ever  been  excelled. 

We  might  go  on  from  poem  to  poem,  as  we  would  in 
some  magnificent  garden,  plucking  here  a  flower  born  of  the 
poet's  exuberant  fancy,  enjoying  the  beauties  his  finer  instinct 


HENRY   W.   LONGFELLOW.  417 

has  pointed  out,  or  tasting  the  rich  fruitage  that  his  wand  of 
magic  power  has  created.  And  they  are  the  choicest  fruits  of 
the  vineyard.  Let  us  say,  frankly,  that  in  Longfellow's  poetry 
we  think  every  one  will  find  something  that  meets  a  want  or 
fulfils  a  longing  of  his  nature.  Guide,  comforter,  philosopher, 
friend,  are  all  combined  in  the  personality  of  Longfellow ;  for 
it  is  he  who  speaks  to  us,  not  as  the  Pharisee  spoke,  but  .with 
the  voice  of  abounding  love,  wisdom,  and  all  charity. 

William  Longfellow,  the  first  English  emigrant  of  the  name, 
settled  at  Newbury,  Massachusetts.  He  was  a  soldier  in  the 
disastrous  expedition  that  Sir  William  Phips  led  against  Quebec, 
and  perished  by  drowning.  The  Longfellows  had  subsequently 
removed  into  the  District  of  Maine,  where  Stephen  Longfellow, 
the  poet's  father,  was  born.  After  graduating  at  Harvard,  Ste- 
phen Longfellow  began  the  practice  of  law  at  Portland ;  and  it 
was  in  this  town,  on  the  2/th  of  February,  1807,  that  Henry 
Wadsworth  Longfellow  came  into  the  world.  The  future  poet 
had  both  Pilgrim  and  Puritan  blood  in  his  veins.  His  father 
was  a  man  of  sound  and  scholarly  attainments,  whose  position 
and  means  were  such  as  to  command  for  his  son  a  favorable 
entrance  into  whatsoever  career  he  might  choose  to  adopt. 

At  fourteen,  young  Longfellow  entered  Bowdoin,  taking  his 
place  in  the  same  class  with  Hawthorne.  The  boy  Longfellow 
was  then  "  very  handsome,  always  well  dressed,  with  no  taste 
for  any  but  refined  pleasure."  His  slight  but  erect  figure,  his 
fair  complexion,  his  clear  blue  eye,  and  abundant  light  brown 
hair  gave  him  a  certain  distinction  among  his  fellows,  who  re- 
spected him  for  the  purity  of  his  tastes  and  his  morals,  and 
loved  him  for  the  gentle  affability  of  his  manners.  Longfellow 
was,  however,  a  conscientious  student;  and  he  speedily  demon- 
strated to  his  classmates  as  well  as  to  his  instructors  that  there 
was  no  effeminacy  of  mind  behind  these  rare  personal  traits. 
He  left  college  distinguished  for  his  scholarship. 

It  was  during  his  college  life  that  Longfellow  began  to  write 
poetry,  —  first  for  the  newspapers  of  his  native  place  and  after- 
ward for  the  "  United  States  Literary  Gazette."  From  the  first 
his  verses  attracted  attention.  A  few  of  these  pieces  were 


418  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

subsequently  reprinted  in  a  group  of  "  Earlier  Poems,"  but  the 
larger  number  remained  unacknowledged  by  the  author  and 
uncollected  until  after  his  death.  Longfellow  was  not  yet  eigh- 
teen when  he  was  feeling  his  way  to  public  favor  by  writing 
such  poetry  as  "  An  April  Day,"  "  Woods  in  Winter,"  and  the 
"  Hymn  of  the  Moravian  Nuns."  Bryant  was  then  the  foremost 
American  poet ;  and  Longfellow  has  admitted  that  the  author  of 
"  Thanatopsis,"  was  the  master  who  had  inspired  and  guided  his 
own  youthful  muse. 

From  Bowdoin  Longfellow  went  into  his  father's  office  to 
begin  the  study  of  law ;  but  the  college  overseers  had  kept  him 
in  mind,  and  within  a  few  months  he  was  offered  and  accepted 
the  appointment  of  professor  of  modern  languages  at  his  alma 
mater,  with  the  privilege  of  spending  three  years  abroad  before 
entering  upon  his  duties.  These  years  were  passed  in  travel, 
observation,  and  study,  whose  course  may  be  traced  in  "  Outre 
Mer,"  a  volume  of  prose  first  published  in  1835.  This  was  not, 
however,  Longfellow's  first  appearance  as  an  author ;  for  he  had 
in  1833  published  a  translation  from  the  Spanish  of  "  Coplas  de 
Manrique."  The  original  author,  Don  Jorge  de  Manrique, 
was  a  sort  of  Castilian  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  and  like  him  was 
devoted  to  both  arms  and  letters.  But  before  these  publica- 
tions had  appeared,  an  event  of  importance  to  Longfellow's  life 
had  occurred.  Upon  his  return  from  Europe  he  had  assumed 
his  duties  at  Bowdoin.  In  1831,  at  the  age  of  twenty-four,  he 
married  Miss  Mary  S.  Potter,  of  Portland,  and  in  1833  his  trans- 
lation of  the  "  Coplas  "  was  printed. 

We  will  suspend  the  continuity  of  our  story  only  long  enough 
to  refer  to  a  remarkable  scene  which  took  place  at  Bowdoin  in 
1875,  because  it  joins  two  eras  in  the  poet's  life.  It  was  the 
fiftieth  anniversary  of  Longfellow's  graduation.  The  survivors 
of  the  class  of  1825  had  come  together  to  celebrate  the  event 
and  to  renew  old  associations.  Only  thirteen  members  of  this 
class  were  then  living.  Hawthorne  was  dead.  These  survivors, 
now  grown  old,  assembled  in  the  church  as  they  had  done  in 
the  old  college  days ;  and  when  the  venerable  poet  stood  up  and 
began  to  read  his  poem  "  Morituri  Salutamus,"  the  scene  was 


HENRY   W.   LONGFELLOW.  419 

indescribably  affecting.  Never  before  had  those  classic  walls 
witnessed  the  like  solemnity.  Just  before  leaving  for  their 
respective  homes  the  class  met  in  a  retired  room  of  the  college, 
and  prayed  together.  Then,  under  the  branches  of  the  old  tree, 
which  was  endeared  to  them  by  its  many  associations  with  their 
youthful  sports,  each  took  the  other  in  silence  by  the  hand, 
spoke  a  last  farewell,  and  went  his  way. 

In  1835  the  professorship  of  modern  languages  at  Harvard, 
made  vacant  by  the  death  of  Professor  Ticknor,  was  tendered 
to,  and  accepted  by  Longfellow.  He  now  made  a  second  visit 
to  Europe,  and  it  was  while  there  that  his  wife's  death  occurred. 
The  "  Footsteps  of  Angels  "  consecrates  her  memory  in  a  spirit 
of  beautiful  resignation. 

Returning  to  Cambridge  and  to  his  duties  at  Harvard,  Long- 
fellow soon  established  himself  in  the  house  that  had  formerly 
been  the  headquarters  of  Washington  and  was  thenceforth  to  be 
his  own  home.  Here  much  of  his  later  poetry  was  written.  In 
Washington's  bedchamber  Longfellow  wrote  "  Hyperion  "  and 
"  Voices  of  the  Night."  "  Hyperion  "  contained  many  fine 
translations  from  the  German  poets,  whose  works  were  then 
almost  unknown  in  America.  The  "Voices  of  the  Night"  was 
equally  a  revelation  of  the  rise  of  a  new  poet  among  us. 

These  two  works  surely  established  Longfellow's  fame. 
Thenceforth  his  course  was  upward  and  onward.  Space  fails 
us  to  do  more  than  enumerate  the  titles  of  some  of  his  later 
contributions  to  literature.  His  "  Ballads  and  other  Poems  " 
appeared  in  1841  ;  "  Evangeline,"  in  1847;  "The  Song  of  Hia- 
watha," in  1855  ;  "  Courtship  of  Miles  Standish,"  1858;  "Tales 
of  a  Wayside  Inn,"  1863;  "Flower  de  Luce,"  1867;  "New 
England  Tragedies,"  1868;  "Three  Books  of  Song,"  1872; 
Aftermath,"  1874;  "  The  Masque  of  Pandora,"  1875  ;  "  Poems  of 
Places,"  1876-79;  "Keramos,"  1878;  "Ultima  Thule,"  1880; 
"Michael  Angelo,"  a  posthumous  work,  1883. 

Although  in  "  Hiawatha "  Longfellow  had  fully  met  the 
demand  for  an  American  poem,  that  he  aimed  at  something 
broader  than  an  American  reputation  is  as  clear  as  day.  With 
him  universality  was  a  canon  of  literary  art.  So  lately  as  1853 


420  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

an  English  journal  of  reputation  could  say,  "  They  [the  Ameri- 
cans] have  not  yet  produced  a  great  poet;  but  they  have 
produced  men,  like  Mr.  Longfellow  and  others,  who  promise, 
at  no  distant  day,  to  reach  the  highest  summit  of  poetic  art." 
The  promise  was  so  far  fulfilled  that  it  is  doubtful  if  any  one 
of  Longfellow's  contemporaries  is  so  widely  read  or  so  highly 
esteemed  as  he  is.  His  poems  have  been  translated  into  every 
cultivated  tongue ;  and  that  universality  which  he  instinctively 
felt  to  be  the  only  measure  of  true  greatness  has  welcomed  him. 
to  the  great  brotherhood  of  cultivated  nations  as  a  benefactor 
of  mankind.  Art  is  indeed  the  interpreter  of  all  languages. 

In  1843  Longfellow  was  again  married,  his  second  wife  being 
Miss  Frances  Elizabeth  Appleton,  of  Boston,  whose  tragic  death 
(she  was  accidentally  burned  to  death  in  her  husband's  library) 
left  such  a  deep  and  lasting  impression  upon  the  poet's  mind 
that  for  many  years  he  was  never  known  to  refer  to  it.  This 
happened  in  1861.  Two  sons  and  three  daughters  were  born 
of  this  marriage,  —  all  of  them  in  the  historic  Cambridge  man- 
sion. In  March,  1882,  shortly  after  the  completion  of  his 
seventy-fifth  year,  and  after  only  a  week's  illness,  whose  fatal 
ending  was  not  at  first  anticipated,  the  poet  died  in  the  fulness 
of  his  fame,  lamented  as  few  of  the  great  ones  of  earth  have 
been,  but  leaving  behind  so  vital  a  part  of  himself  that  we  can 
scarcely  say  that  he  is  dead. 

Longfellow  was  a  man  of  noble  and  gracious  presence,  free 
from  the  littleness  or  hauteur  that  so  often  degrades  great  men, 
a  friend  to  every  call  of  humanity,  a  foe  to  every  wrong,  a 
guide  and  benefactor  to  all  who  sought  his  counsel  or  assist- 
ance, a  patron  of  true  worth,  and  a  most  devoted  lover  of  the 
arts.  No  literary  man  of  his  century  has  left  so  sweet  a  remem- 
brance behind  him,  or,  what  is  far  more,  so  high  an  example 
of  his  own  simple  precept  that 

"  We  can  make  our  lives  sublime." 

Longfellow  had  a  grave  and  gentle  humor  that  was  most  win- 
ning. He  was  a  delightful  companion  and  a  charming  host. 
His  manner  was  the  union  of  courtliness  and  of  bonhomie, — 


aSfllii  ififr--  ifi-    „, '-,  ^  •  «,:>,; 


HARRIET    BEECHER    STOWE. 


HARRIET   BEECHER   STOWE.  423 

the  blending  of  a  Sidney  with  an  Agassiz.  Calumny  never 
approached,  nor  could  flattery  spoil,  him.  Though  his  hand 
will  nevermore  touch  the  pen,  we  say  again  that  Longfellow 
is  not  dead,  for  his  genius  still  abides  with  us.1 


HARRIET   BEECHER   STOWE. 

[BORN  1812.] 

A  T  the  mature  age  of  forty  Mrs.  Stowe  took  up  her  pen  to 
•**•  write  what  proved  to  be  the  greatest  book  of  the  cen- 
tury, with  probably  little  or  no  idea  of  the  extraordinary  effect 
that  it  was  destined  to  produce,  —  that  her  work  was,  in  fact, 
the  weapon  by  which  slavery  in  the  United  States  should 
receive  its  deathblow.  This  is  not  saying  a  word  too  much 
for  the  influence  that  effort  of  genius,  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin," 
exerted  upon  the  public  mind ;  for  what  statesmen,  politicians, 
political  economists,  with  all  the  agitators  of  the  antislavery 
school,  had  so  far  failed  to  bring  about,  —  namely,  the  creation 
of  an  overwhelming  popular  sentiment  against  slavery,  —  Mrs. 
Stowe  did  almost  with  a  stroke  of  the  pen.  By  such  humble 
means  are  the  destinies  of  nations  decided !  In  the  non- 
slaveholding  communities  "Uncle  Tom"  created  a  feeling  of 
national  degradation,  certain  to  recoil  upon  its  cause,  which 
feeling  was  greatly  intensified  by  the  almost  unanimous  voice 
of  the  outside  world  raised  in  condemnation  of  this  sarcasm 
upon  the  name  of  free  institutions.  This  voice  of  the  people 
has  often  been  compared  with  the  voice  of  God.  The  revul- 
sion against  slavery  was  instantaneous.  And  so  "Uncle  Tom" 
became,  without  any  special  purpose  in  its  author,  a  great  moral 
t force.  Emancipation  was  indeed  a  long  time  deferred;  yet  it  is 
undoubtedly  true  that  by  bringing  slavery  to  the  bar  of  an 

1  The  portrait  of  Mr.  Longfellow  is  from  a  picture  selected  by  the  poet  himself, 
and  pronounced  by  him  to  be  the  most  satisfactory  likeness  he  had  ever  sat  for. 


424  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

aroused  public  opinion,  and  thus  constituting  it  the  one  ab- 
sorbing question,  political  and  moral,  of  the  hour,  its  ultimate 
downfall  was  rendered  a  matter  of  certainty. 

"  Uncle  Tom "  was  a  book  that  everybody  could  under- 
stand. The  poor  and  down-trodden  wept  over  it;  the  rich  and 
powerful  were  haunted  and  reproached  and  humbled  by  it; 
while  the  slaveholders,  seeing  the  whole  civilized  world  arrayed 
against  them  through  the  agency  of  one  weak  and  obscure 
woman,  realized  that  at  last  slavery  and  the  public  conscience 
stood  face  to  face.  The  event  could  not  long  be  uncertain. 

Mrs.  Stowe  has,  it  is  true,  written  much  besides,  but  nothing 
that  can  compare  with  "  Uncle  Tom."  That  book  began  a  new 
era.  Her  "mission"  in  the  world  —  and  the  phrase  has  its 
true  significance  here — was  achieved  at  a  single  stroke  through 
the  simple  and  truthful  tale  which  flowed  from  her  pen  under 
the  impulse  of  a  noble  passion  that  could  not  be  restrained. 
Slavery  was  the  fatal  bequest  of  the  founders  of  the  Republic ; 
it  was  surrounded  with  safeguards ;  it  had  created  a  privileged 
class,  in  whose  hands  it  had  always  been  an  element  of  power 
in  the  nation ;  and  it  was  growing  more  and  more  arrogant  and 
aggressive.  In  vain  did  a  few  philanthropic  men  try  to  make 
head  against  it.  Slavery  stood  intrenched  behind  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  nation,  and  defied  them.  Nay  more,  scorn,  abusive 
epithets,  and  violence  were  liberally  meted  out  to  this  weak 
band  of  agitators,  even  in  the  free  section  of  the  Union.  Garri- 
son, Whittier,  Phillips,  Tappan,  Birney,  and  their  intrepid  co- 
laborers  were  barely  tolerated  at  home.  In  the  slave  States  no 
one  dared  to  raise  a  voice  against  the  iniquitous  domestic  insti- 
tution. But  "Uncle  Tom's"  myriad  voices  could  not  be  silenced. 
An  English  writer  of  eminence  has  spoken  of  it  as  one  of  those 
books  which  insist  upon  being  read  when  once  begun.  And 
read  it  was,  both  North  and  South.  •  Slaveholders  read  it  se-' 
cretly.  Resistance  to  the  encroachments  of  slavery  upon  free 
territory  began  at  this  era.  That  resistance  produced  open  war. 
between  the  sections ;  war  brought  about  emancipation ;  and  in 
a  little  more  than  ten  years  after  the  appearance  of  "  Uncle 
Tom"  no  slave  was  lawfully  held  in  bondage  within  the  vast 


HARRIET   BEECHER   STOWE.  425 

territorial  limits  of  the  American  Union.  We  can  now  look 
back  and  see  how  it  was  that  Mrs.  Stowe  did  more  to  bring 
about  this  result  than  all  other  agencies  put  together. 

"  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  or  Life  among  the  Lowly,"  was  pub- 
lished in  1852.  Its  success  from  a  literary  standpoint  was 
prodigious;  and  as  that  success  is  the  key  to  its  moral  influ- 
ence, we  will  give  a  few  facts  in  relation  to  it.  In  a  few  weeks' 
time  fifty  thousand  copies  had  been  sold ;  in  a  few  months  two 
hundred  thousand  had  been  struck  off,  and  the  demand  was  still 
for  more.  Within  two  years,  it  is  said,  two  million  copies  had 
been  spread  throughout  America  and  Europe,  where  it  was 
quickly  translated  and  scattered  broadcast  over  the  continent. 
Editions  in  nine  different  languages  have  been  printed.  It  was 
dramatized  and  acted  on  the  stage  from  one  end  of  the  North- 
ern States  to  the  other,  and  in  every  capital  in  Europe,  thus 
greatly  enlarging  the  sphere  of  its  influence  by  bringing  the 
realism  of  its  pictures  of  Southern  life  and  manners  home  to 
multitudes  of  spectators.  And  notwithstanding  the  fact  that 
slavery  with  all  its  accompanying  evils  has  now  been  for  twenty 
years  dead  and  buried,  the  story  continues  to  be  read  and 
acted,  and  has  enduring  interest,  both  as  an  incident  of  the 
greatest  social  convulsion  of  modern  times  and  as  portraying  an 
extinct  social  phase  with  originality  and  power.  In  any  case, 
we  conclude  that  the  history  of  the  great  civil  conflict  in  the 
United  States  can  hardly  be  read  understandingly  without  a 
reference  to  "  Uncle  Tom "  and  its  gifted  author. 

In  1853,  the  year  after  the  appearance  of  "Uncle  Tom"  in 
this  country,  Mrs.  Stowe  went  to  Europe,  arriving  in  England 
in  May.  She  was  accompanied  by  her  husband  and  by  her 
brother,  the  Rev.  Charles  Beecher.  "  Uncle  Tom  "  had  already 
preceded  her,  and  all  classes  were  eager  to  see  and  do  honor 
to  its  creator.  She  was  welcomed  at  Stafford  House  by  a 
most  distinguished  gathering,  numbering  many  of  the  highest 
personages  in  the  kingdom.  Everywhere  her  reception  was  of 
the  most  flattering  kind.  In  Edinburgh  she  was  tendered  a 
public  banquet,  at  which  the  Lord  Provost  presided.  The  cere- 
monies were  concluded  with  the  presentation  to  Mrs.  Stowe  by 


426  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

ladies  of  Edinburgh  of  .£1,000,  in  gold,  the  product  of  an 
"  Uncle  Tom  Penny  Offering,"  to  be  applied  by  Mrs.  Stowe  to 
the  cause  of  emancipation.  The  ladies  of  Aberdeen  presented 
her  with  £120  for  the  same  purpose:  Yet  while  the  talented 
author  was  being  thus  feted  and  caressed,  and  while  the  press 
was  saying  the  most  flattering  things  of  her,  England  was  being 
flooded  with  cheap  "  Uncle  Tom's,"  for  which  Mrs.  Stowe  never 
received  a  penny. 

The  antecedents  of  such  a  woman  are  naturally  interesting. 
Mrs.  Stowe's  mind  was  formed  in  a  good  school.  Lyman 
Beecher,  her  father,  was  the  son  of  a  New  England  blacksmith, 
and  had  followed  his  father's  trade  until  convictions  of  duty  had 
carried  him  into  the  pulpit,  where  he  became  a  commanding 
figure.  Strong  and  sturdy  common-sense  were  his  prominent 
characteristics.  It  was  while  he  was  pastor  of  the  church  at 
Litchfield,  Connecticut,  and  rising  in  fame  as  a  pulpit  orator, 
that  Harriet  was  born.  From  Litchfield  Lyman  Beecher  was 
called  to  the  pastoral  charge  of  the  Hanover  Street  Presbyte- 
rian Church,  in  Boston,  where  he  remained  until  1832.  In  that 
year  he  removed  to  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  in  order  to  assume  the 
charge  of  Lane  Theological  Seminary,  an  institution  founded 
by  the  New  School  Presbyterians  for  the  purpose  of  preparing 
young  men  for  the  ministry  of  that  denomination.  Mr.  Beecher 
remained  at  the  head  of  the  Seminary  for  eighteen  years,  until 
1850,  when  in  consequence  of  the  decline  of  the  institution  he 
returned  to  Boston.  As  these  eighteen  years  formed  the  impor- 
tant period  of  Harriet  Beecher's  life,  the  history  of  Lane  Sem- 
inary is  to  some  extent  that  of  the  work  which  subsequently 
won  for  her  an  enduring  literary  fame.  The  year  1833  inau- 
gurated a  bitter  agitation  of  the  slavery  question ;  and  that 
agitation,  begun  by  the  Abolition  Convention  which  met  at 
Philadelphia,  reached  and  disturbed  the  Seminary  on  the  banks 
of  the  Ohio.  This  institution  was  soon  in  a  blaze  of  excitement. 
It  became  a  centre  of  active  abolition  feeling  and  effort.  The 
merchants  of  Cincinnati,  whose  business  relations  with  Ken- 
tucky were  close  and  intimate,  took  the  alarm.  The  mob,  urged 
on  by  slaveholders  or  by  those  who  sympathized  with  them, 


HARRIET    BEECHER   STOWE. 


427 


threatened  to  pull  down  the  Seminary.  Public  opinion  de- 
manded that  its  voice  should  be  silenced,  and  it  was  silenced. 
The  students  then  deserted  it  almost  to  a  man,  leaving  the  Fac- 
ulty to  do  what  it  could  towards  restoring  to  the  institution  its 
lost  prestige.  The  Beechers  were  silenced  with  the  rest. 

One  member  of  the  Faculty  was  the  Rev.  Calvin  E.  Stowe, 
Professor  of  Biblical  Literature  in  the  Seminary.  Harriet 
Beecher  married  him  in  1832,  the  same  year  that  she  went  to 
Cincinnati.  When  this  important  event  in  her  life  took  place, 
she  was  not  quite  twenty-one.  .  She  had  previously  taught  a 
female  school,  with  her  sister  Catherine,  in  Hartford,  and  the 
two  sisters  had  opened  a  similar  one  at  Walnut  Hills;  so  that, 
although  still  young  at  the  period  of  the  disorders  at  the  Semi- 
nary, Mrs.  Stowe  was  already  an  experienced  observer  of  hu- 
man nature,  with  the  added  advantage  of  having  always  lived  in 
an  intellectual  atmosphere  in  which  her  mind  steadily  expanded 
and  matured. 

For  eighteen  years,  then,  Lane  Seminary  was  Mrs.  Stowe's 
home.  We  have  seen  that  the  effort  to  convert  that  institution 
into  neutral  ground  had  brought  nothing  but  disaster  to  it  or 
its  friends.  But  such  close  contact  with  the  horrors  of  slavery 
—  and  of  all  these  none  was  more  harrowing  than  the  pursuit 
of  many  miserable  fugitives  into  the  free  territory  of  Ohio  — 
was  every  day  increasing  the  antislavery  feeling.  Cincinnati 
soon  became  a  battle-field  of  the  two  factions,  who  grew  more 
and  more  exasperated  and  determined  in  their  hostility  towards 
each  other  as  the  conflict  progressed.  One  protected  the  poor 
fugitives  and  aided  them  in  their  flight.  The  other  retaliated 
by  mobbing  known  abolitionists,  destroying  abolition  presses,  or 
by  murderous  assaults  upon  the  free  negroes  of  the  city,  who 
were  shot  down  in  the  streets,  and  their  quarters  plundered  and 
sacked,  as  if  they  had  been  the  most  dangerous  enemies  to 
public  order. 

To  all  of  these  scenes  Mrs.  Stowe  was  an  eyewitness.  The 
road  which  passed  her  door  was  the  one  commonly  spoken  of  as 
the  "  Underground  Railroad ;  "  for  it  was  the  route  over  which 
fugitive  slaves  made  their  escape  from  Kentucky  to  Canada. 


428  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

To  more  than  one  of  these  trembling  outcasts  her  husband 
gave  food,  shelter,  and  a  God-speed  on  his  forlorn  way  to  free- 
dom ;  and  to  the  sad  chapter  of  actual  experience  thus  gained 
by  Mrs.  Stovve,  under  conditions  which  burned  its  incidents  and 
its  lessons  deeply  into  her  memory,  the  world  owes  the  pro- 
duction, a  dozen  years  later,  of  "  Uncle  Tom."  She  had  shed 
many  tears  over  the  unwritten  wrongs  of  the  slave,  but  she  lived 
to  see  a  world  weeping  over  her  touching  story  of  these  wrongs  ; 
and,  what  is  more,  she  has  lived  to  see  them  redressed. 

"  Uncle  Tom"  was  not  written,  however,  under  the  uncontrol- 
lable impulse  of  the  moment.  Mrs.  Stowe  herself  alludes  to  the 
period  of  observation  during  her  residence  at  Lane  Seminary  in 
these  words :  "  For  many  years  of  her  life  the  author  avoided 
all  reading  upon  or  allusion  to  the  subject  of  slavery,  con- 
sidering it  too  painful  to  be  in'quired  into,  and  one  which 
advancing  light  and  civilization  would  live  down."  We  know, 
therefore,  that  she  did  not  believe  herself  to  be  appointed  in 
any  special  way  an  advocate  of  the  antislavery  cause ;  but  we 
have  at  the  same  time  no  difficulty  in  perceiving  the  strong 
tendency  of  her  mind  in  that  direction  from  the  moment  the 
opportunity  to  speak  out  presented  itself.  Until  then  her 
woman's  heart  bore  the  scar  of  an  unhealed  wound.  That 
opportunity  came  at  last.  Upon  his  return  to  New  England 
Professor  Stowe  had  accepted  the  appointment  of  Divinity  Pro- 
fessor at  Bowdoin,  and  with  his  gifted  wife  had  taken  up  his 
residence  at  Brunswick.  It  was  there,  while  occupied  with  the 
cares  of  a  family,  that  Mrs.  Stowe  received  from  Dr.  Bailey,  of 
the  "  National  Era,"  a  request  for  the  great  story,  which  first 
appeared  in  the  weekly  issues  of  that  paper.  Having  once 
been  a  victim  of  mob  violence  in  Cincinnati  himself,  no  man 
could  better  appreciate  the  truth  of  "  Uncle  Tom  "  than  Dr. 
Bailey.  He  knew  and  esteemed  the  Beechers.  He  had  read 
with  approval  Mrs.  Stowe's  first  volume  of  tales,  "  The  May- 
flower," which  she  brought  out  in  1849.  Upon  this  request, 
which  was  accompanied  with  a  check  for  $100,  Mrs.  Stowe 
began  to  write  during  such  intervals  as  could  be  snatched  from 
household  duties.  Her  ambition  had  been  aroused  in  its  true 


WILLIAM    CAXTON. 


WILLIAM    CAXTON.  431 

direction.  She  wrote  on  with  increasing  force  and  intensity. 
We  are  told  how  absorbed  and  fascinated  she  became  with  her 
theme,  and  with  what  fidelity  she  reproduced  the  scenes  that 
had  filled  her  womanly  soul  with  horror  and  indignation.  But 
as  yet  "  Uncle  Tom  "  had  made  little  impression  upon  the  pub- 
lic. The  "  National  Era  "  was  a  partisan  newspaper  of  limited 
influence,  —  so  limited,  indeed,  that  comparatively  few  persons 
are  now  aware  that  Mrs.  Stowe's  great  novel  first  saw  the  light 
in  its  columns. 

Mrs.  Stowe's  subsequent  literary  labors  have  been  eminently 
productive,  so  much  so  that  no  woman  of  her  century  has  con- 
tributed more  to  good  literature  than  she.  But  our  purpose  is 
limited  to  the  presentation  of  the  one  work  upon  which  rests 
her  claim  to  the  name,  not  alone  of  a  benefactor  to  her  race, 
but  of  humanity  everywhere;  and  with  that  we  must  remain 
content. 


WILLIAM   CAXTON. 

[BORN  1412.!    DIED  1492.] 

*""  INHERE  are  some  men  who  have  lived  and  worked  among 
-•-  us  in  such  a  manner  as  to  merit  the  name  of  "  Bene- 
factors," whose  legacy  to  posterity  has  been  too  great  to  be 
estimated,  too  pervading  almost  to  be  even  felt.  Like  the 
immeasurably  beneficial  forces  of  nature,  like  the  glorious 
sunlight,  the  life-sustaining  heat,  and  water,  the  source  and  the 
emblem  of  purity,  we  are  too  much  accustomed  to  them  to  be 
capable  of  appreciating  them.  Such  is  printing,  the  art  by 
which  these  thoughts  are  at  this  very,  moment  being  conveyed, 
respected  reader,  to  your  mind. 

Four   hundred    and    forty   years    ago,  or   thereabouts,  —  for 

exact  figures  are  not  attainable, — a  German,  who  is  now  con- 

28 

1  The  exact  date  is  not  known. 


432  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

ventionally  recognized  as  John  Gutenberg,  discovered  the  art 
of  mechanically  reproducing  on  paper,  by  the  use  of  movable 
types,  words  and  pages  that  had  previously  been  only  engraved 
on  blocks  of  wood,  as  books  are  produced  in  China  at  this  day. 
Printing  was  known  to  the  ancients  and  was  practised  by  them. 
Paper  was  common  enough  a  century  or  two  before.  For 
years  mankind  had  been  blundering  on  the  verge  of  the  great 
discovery  of  typography.  Cheap  books  of  different  kinds  were 
on  sale  in  every  country  of  Europe,  before  types  were  thought 
of.  But  this  man,  by  his  invention  of  a  simple  mould  for  cast- 
ing characters,  provided  the  world  with  facilities  for  its  intel- 
lectual advancement,  useful  for  all  time,  and  capable  of  infinite 
utilization.  All  who  have  visited  Strasburg  have  seen  his 
statue,  a  fac-simile  of  which  is  appropriately  placed  in  front  of 
the  government  printing-office  at  Paris.  At  the  base  of  it 
stands  the  grand  inscription,  Et  la  lumiere  fut,  —  "And  there 
was  light."  That  light  beamed,  intellectually,  from  the  print- 
ing-press as  when  heaven's  own  light  burst  out,  materially,  at 
the  command  of  the  Almighty. 

We  need  not  recount  the  incidents  of  the  life  of  the  great 
proto-printer,  —  his  troubles  at  starting,  the  injustice  his  im- 
pecuniosity  brought  down  upon  him,  his  death  imbittered  by 
neglect,  rendered  the  more  satirical  by  the  fact  that  he  was  the 
wearer  of  a  courtier's  dress.  His  art  spread  like  wild-fire  all 
over  Europe.  No  modern  inventor,  even  with  the  facilities  of 
publication  which  we  possess,  and  which  were  then  wanting, 
has  ever  made  such  initial  progress.  Steam,  railways,  gas- 
lighting,  and  now  the  electric  light,  have  passed  through  a  long 
childhood ;  printing  attained  its  majority  in  a  day.  From 
France,  Spain,  Portugal,  Italy,  and  even  Russia,  it  spread  with 
a  velocity  reminding  one  of  the  transmission  of  news  in  Macau- 
lay's  Ode  on  the  Armada. 

It  took,  however,  nearly  thirty  years  to  reach  •  England. 
Printing  was  invented  about  1440;  it  was  introduced  into  Eng- 
land not  before  1476  or  1477.  In  1450  the  whole  Bible  in  the 
Vulgate  Latin  was  printed ;  a  copy  of  it  (worth  about  £4,000) 
may  be  seen  in  the  British  Museum.  Yet  for  so  many  years 


WILLIAM   CAXTON.  433 

did  England,  destined  to  occupy  so  pre-eminent  a  place  in  the 
intellectual  traffic  of  the  world,  remain  without  the  "art  pre- 
servative of  arts." 

The  man  who  brought  the  British  nation  this  gift  was  not  a 
professional  printer,  not  a  craftsman.  William  Caxton  —  for 
that  is  our  benefactor's  name  —  never,  in  fact,  became  a  good 
printer;  early  English  books  are  not  to  be  compared  for  ele- 
gance and  taste  to  the  contemporary  productions  of  Continental 
countries.  But  he  enjoyed  the  grand  position  of  being  ihejfirsf 
printer  in  England,  and  brought  over  with  him  a  blessing  only 
comparable  to  that  which  was  given  to  us  by  the  first  apostle  of 
Christianity. 

The  mind  would  like  to  dwell  on  the  lineaments  of  such  a 
man.  Unhappily  we  have  no  pictorial  presentment  of  his 
form  and  features ;  the  reputed  portrait  is  absolutely  fictitious. 
So  much  historical  interest,  however,  attaches  to  the  conven- 
tional likeness  of  Caxton  that  our  artist  has  reproduced  it,  as 
well  as  some  of  the  most  noteworthy  scenes  of  his  labors.  Nor 
do  we  know  much  about  his  life.  He  is  not  mentioned  in  any 
public  document  of  his  day;  his  name  appears  in  certain  deeds 
and  books  of  account,  but  not  in  connection  with  the  achieve- 
ment that  has  immortalized  him.  All  our  knowledge  of  him  is 
obtained  from  a  peculiar  gossiping  habit  he  had  of  interlarding 
his  writings  with  biographical  reminiscences  and  personal  sen- 
timents. A  few  of  these  must  now  be  referred  to ;  but  in 
this  sketch  we  avoid  mere  historical  or  statistical  details,  with  a 
view  to  appreciate  the  man's  mission  rather  than  to  investigate 
his  life. 

He  was  born  —  we  do  not  know  when  —  in  the  Weald  of 
Kent.  Of  the  locality  even  we  are  ignorant.  It  was  then  a 
rude,  almost  barbarous  country.  The  language  was  so  broad 
as  to  be  hardly  recognizable  as  English.  In  fact,  a  century  and 
a  half  after  the  nativity  of  onr  benefactor,  a  topographical  writer 
described  it  as  "  a  desert  and  waste  wilderness,"  "  stored  and 
stuffed  with  herds  of  deer  and  droves  of  hogs  only."  Caxton's 
father  was^ probably  a  landed  proprietor;  else  he  could  neither 
have  given  him  such  a  good  education  as  he  undoubtedly  pos- 


434  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

sessed,  or  apprenticed  him  to  a  London  mercer,  which  proved 
the  foundation  of  his  fortunes; 

After  being  at  school,  Caxton  was  sent  to  London,  and 
apprenticed  to  Robert  Large,  member  of  the  Mercers'  Com- 
pany. The  latter  was,  as  documentary  evidence  proves,  a  man 
of  great  influence  and  wealth.  He  was  a  merchant  as  well  as  a 
mercer;  and  it  is  nearly  certain  that  among  his  merchandise 
were  books.  They  were,  however,  rare,  and  consequently 
costly ;  hence  the  mercer's  apprentice  was  placed  in  favorable 
circumstances  to  cultivate  a  taste  for  reading,  which  otherwise 
could  not  have  been  gratified  without  an  expense  obviously 
beyond  his  reach.  Robert  L'arge  was  Lord  Mayor  of  London 
in  1439—40;  in  the  following  year  he  died,  leaving  to  Caxton 
twenty  marks, — a  very  considerable  sum  in  those  days.  We 
now  begin  to  get  glimpses  of  the  career  of  the  future  printer 
from  stray  records,  and  find  that  shortly  after  the  decease  of 
his  master  he  went  abroad.  In  1464  Edward  IV.  issued  a  com- 
mission to  Caxton  and  another  to  be  his  ambassadors  and  pro- 
curators to  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  in  order  to  arrange  a  new 
treaty  of  commerce.  This  was  effected:  trade  with  England, 
which  had  been  suspended  for  many  years,  was  resumed. 
Caxton  appears  to  have  remained  abroad  on  the  scene  of  his 
diplomatic  success  at  Bruges.  He  employed  his  spare  time  in 
literary  pursuits,  and  produced  a  book  which  would  not,  how- 
ever, commend  itself  to  the  taste  of  the  present  day.  It  is 
called  "The  Recuyell  of  the  Histories  of  Troy,"  and  was  begun 
in  1468.  It  treated  of  chivalry,  and  its  contents  were  a  curious 
agglomeration  of  romance  and  fact,  philosophy  and  facetiae, 
with  a  thread  of  pious  aspiration  running  through  the  whole. 
The  translation  was  handed  about  in  manuscript,  and  was 
highly  appreciated.  We  are  now  again  on  conjectural  ground, 
and  know  not  certainly  how  it  came  to  be  printed  or  by  whom. 
Certain  it  was  that  the  "  Histories  of  Troy"  was  the  first  pub- 
lished book  in  the  English  language.  It  is  not  yet  settled  from 
whom  Caxton  learned  the  art  or  where.  There  are  two  emi- 
nent authorities  on  the  subject,  —  Mr.  Blades,  of  London,  and 
Mr.  Madden,  of  Versailles.  The  first  believes  that  he  learned  it 


WILLIAM    CAXTON.  435 

from  Colard  Mansion  at  Cologne ;  the  other,  from  Ulric  Zell, 
of  Bruges.  A  vast  amount  of  controversy  has  ensued  on  this 
particular  point.  Caxton  published  several  other  books  abroad, 
whose  titles  we  need  not  specify.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  after 
remaining  out  of  his  native  land  for  about  thirty  years,  he  came 
back  to  London  with  a  practical  knowledge  of  the  art  of 
printing. 

In  1477  there  was  issued  a  book  called  "  The  Dictes  and 
Sayinges  of  Philosophres  "  —  "  Emprynted  by  one  William  Cax- 
ton, at  Westminster."  It  was  the  first  book  printed  in  England. 
Caxton's  press  was  set  up  in  the  precincts  of  the  sacred  build- 
ing, and  there  he  labored  up  to  the  time  of  his  death.  His 
publications  are  very  numerous,  his  enterprise  was  indefatigable, 
and  probably  his  financial  success  was  not  inconsiderable. 

We  cannot  here  give  a  bibliographical  list  of  "  Caxtons," 
those  precious  volumes  now  worth  sums  averaging  ^400  and 
^500  each.  But  we  must  refer  to  one  indicative  in  its  tone  of 
the  prevailing  sentiment  of  its  author.  It  was  written,  as  we 
know,  from  the  words  of  an  apprentice  who  survived  his  master, 
—  Wynken  de  Worde,  —  when  the  old  printer  was  just  on  the 
verge  of  the  grave.  The  title  is,  "  The  Art  and  Craft  to  know 
well  to  Die,"  and  in  the  commencement  are  the  following 
words :  — 

"  When  it  is  so,  that  what  man  maketh  or  doeth  it  is  made 
to  come  to  some  end,  and  if  the  thing  be  good  and  well  made 
it  must  needs  come  to  good  end ;  then  by  better  and  greater 
reason  every  man  ought  to  intend  in  such  wise  to  live  in  this 
world,  in  keeping  the  commandments  of  God,  that  he  may 
come  to  a  good  end.  And  then  out  of  this  world,  full  of 
wretchedness  and  tribulations,  he  may  go  to  heaven  unto  God 
and  his  saints,  unto  joy  perdurable."  A  very  little  later,  in 
1492,  Caxton  had  come  to  his  own  end. 

Such  is  a  very  rough  outline  sketch  of  the  life  of  a  real 
"  benefactor,"  not  of  an  age,  but  for  all  time.  He  was  not  a 
great  scholar,  like  some  of  his  contemporaries ;  he  seems  to 
have  eschewed  politics  and  played  no  part  in  the  eventful 
drama  of  his  time ;  it  is  probable  he  did  not  die  in  affluent 


436  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

circumstances.  But  his  life  presents  a  variety  of  lessons  and 
suggests  many  thoughts.  His  filial  affection,  his  earnestness, 
his  industry,  his  enthusiasm,  and  his  rectitude  are  not  unworthy 
of  imitation  in  an  age  like  our  own,  apt  to  undervalue  such 
virtues.  His  piety  was  tinged  with  mediaeval  superstition,  yet 
was  unaffected  and  sincere.  He  never  overrated  his  work, 
although  he  must  have  foreseen  its  tremendous  importance  and 
significance.  England  may  well  be  proud  of  such  a  man;  and 
although  she  has  no  monument  of  him  in  brass  or  stone,  his 
memorial  is  universal.  As  was  said  of  the  great  German  proto- 
printer,  his  monument  is  "the  frailest,  but  the  most  enduring, — 
it  is  THE  BOOK." 


SIR    CHRISTOPHER   WREN. 

[BORN  1632.    DIED  1723  ] 

/CHRISTOPHER  WREN  was  born  at  East  Knoyle,  in  Wilt- 
^-/  shire,  the  rectory  of  his  father,  Dr.  Christopher  Wren,  Dean 
of  Windsor,  on  the  2Oth  of  October,  1632.  His  uncle,  Dr. 
Matthew  Wren,  who  was  successively  Bishop  of  Hereford, 
Norwich,  and  Ely,  was  eminent  in  the  ecclesiastical  history  of 
England.  He  was  impeached,  shortly  after  Archbishop  Laud, 
for  his  devotion  to  the  royal  cause,  but  was  never  brought  to 
trial,  though  he  suffered  a  protracted  imprisonment  of  nearly 
twenty  years.  Cromwell,  who  often  met  the  young  Christopher 
at  his  son-in-law  Claypole's,  sent  a  message  by  the  youth  to  the 
Bishop  that  "  he  might  come  out  of  the  Tower  if  he  pleased." 
But  the  Bishop  utterly  refused,  disdaining  the  terms  proposed 
for  his  enlargement. 

Wren  was  one  of  those  whose  future  eminence  was  early  fore- 
seen, and  whose  riper  years  redeemed  the  promise  of  his  youth. 
Like  all  great  men  he  manifested  large  general  powers,  a  versa- 
tility not  arising  from  a  smattering  of  a  vast  variety  of  knowl- 
edge, but  from  the  grasp  of  those  common  principles  that 


CHRISTOPHER    WREN. 


SIR   CHRISTOPHER   WREN.  439 

underlie  all  knowledge,  and  which  give  the  fortunate  possessor 
not  only  the  mastery  over  any  special  field  of  study,  but  a  facil- 
ity of  comprehension  over  the  entire  domain  of  knowledge.  It 
is  recorded  that  at  the  age  of  thirteen  he  -had  invented  an  astro- 
nomical instrument,  an  account  of  which  he  dedicated  to  his  father 
in  a  Latin  epistle.  This  essay  was  followed  by  others  of  the 
same  kind.  He  was  in  infancy  and  youth  extremely  delicate  in 
health.  Wren  received  his  early  education  under  his  father, 
and  at  the  age  of  fourteen  was  sent  to  Wadham  College,  Ox- 
ford, where  his  attainments  procured  him  the  friendship  and 
patronage  of  the  most  eminent  persons,  among  whom  were 
Bishop  Wilkins  and  the  celebrated  Oughtred,  who  in  the  preface 
to  his  "  Clavis  Mathematica"  mentions  Wren  as  having  attained 
at  the  age  of  sixteen  such  a  knowledge  in  mathematics  and  in 
natural  philosophy  as  gave  promise  of  future  eminence.  Wil- 
kins introduced  him  to  Prince  Charles,  Elector  Palatine,  as  a 
prodigy. 

As  early  as  1645  he  was  one  of  a  club  of  scientific  men 
connected  with  Gresham  College,  who  met  weekly  to  discuss 
philosophical  questions,  —  of  that  club  from  which  sprung  the 
Royal  Society.  More  fortunate  than  his  father  and  uncle, 
though  he  also  lived  in  troublous  times,  he  pursued  his  course 
straight  to  the  object  of  his  ambition  while  conflicting  parties 
were  exhausting  themselves  in  acts  of  violence.  It  was  not 
until  Wren's  time  that  the  inductive  process  became  duly 
understood  and  appreciated.  It  was  the  example  of  a  few 
eminent  men,  of  whom  Wren  was  one,  that  first  led  the  way  to 
the  adoption  of  the  new  philosophy,  of  reasoning  gradually 
from  particulars  to  thooe  one  step  more  general,  and  not,  as 
formerly,  adopting  general  positions  hastily  assumed  from 
particular  instances.  But  we  must  not  tarry  to  dwell  on  his 
numerous  contributions  to  science, —  microscopical,  astronomi- 
cal, mathematical,  physiological,  mechanical,  etc.  The  inven- 
tion of  the  barometer  was  even  claimed  for  him.  He  (in 
conjunction  with  Wallis,  Huyghens,  Newton,  Leibnitz,  and  the 
Bernouillis)  occupied  himself  with  the  investigation  of  the 
cycloid,  which  had  been  discovered  by  Pascal.  He  was  also 


440  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

eminent  as  a  demonstrator  and  anatomist,  and  originated  the 
experiment  of  injecting  various  fluids  into  the  veins  of  living 
animals.  But  to  enter  upon  a  detailed  account  of  all  the 
studies  and  discoveries  of  Wren  would  in  fact  be  to  give  the 
history  of  natural  philosophy  in  his  age. 

And  now  we  reach  the  history  of  his  crowning  work,  the 
grand  Protestant  monumental  edifice,  St.  Paul's.  This  cathedral 
is  the  triumphant  record  of  the  culmination  of  the  Reformation 
in  England,  —  of  religious  views  as  diametrically  opposed  to 
those  which  preceded  them  as  the  architecture  of  the  present 
building  to  that  which  it  supplanted.  This  fact  must  be  imper- 
atively borne  in  mind  in  the  contemplated  internal  decoration 
of  the  cathedral.  For  St.  Paul's  is  the  typical  monumental 
edifice  of  what  may  be  termed  England's  Protestant  history. 
From  every  point  of  vantage  in  the  suburbs  its  emphatic  dome 
points  a  moral  and  caps  the  vast  city. 

Soon  after  the  Restoration  Charles  II.  contemplated  the 
repair  of  the  old  cathedral,  which  had  become  dilapidated 
during  the  Commonwealth,  and  its  choir  converted  into  a  bar- 
rack. In  1660  a  commission  was  issued  in  which  Wren  was 
named  to  superintend  the  restoration.  He  was  long  employed 
in  considering  the  best  mode  of  effecting  this.  The  cathedral 
nad  been  partly  repaired  by  Inigo  Jones.  But  all  these  plans 
and  projects  of  restoration  were  upset  by  the  Great  Fire  in 
1666,  which  completed  the  ruin  of  the  ancient  edifice  and  ren- 
dered them  impracticable.  Charles  had,  during  his  residence 
abroad,  imbibed  a  taste  for  the  arts,  particularly  for  architecture, 
and  upon  his  deciding  to  repair  St.  Paul's,  to  reinstate  Wind- 
sor Castle,  and  to  build  a  new  palace  at  Greenwich,  had  Wren 
sent  for  from  Oxford  in  1661  to  assist  Sir  John  Denham,  the 
surveyor-general,  who  of  course  understood  nothing  about  archi- 
tecture. Denham  remained  the  surveyor  with  the  salary ;  Wren 
as  his  deputy  performing  all  the  duties  of  the  office.  About 
this  date  he  made  the  design  for  the  Sheldonian  Theatre  at 
Oxford,  which  has  a  flat  roof  eighty  by  seventy  feet,  without 
arches  or  pillars  to  support  it,  and  for  the  chapel  of  Pembroke 
Hall,  Cambridge. 


SIR   CHRISTOPHER   WREN.  44! 

In  1665  Wren  went  to  Paris  for  the  purpose  of  studying  its 
architecture  and  preparing  himself  for  his  grand  work.  From 
France  he  had  intended  to  have  passed  into  Italy  and  to  study 
Vitruvius  amidst  the  remains  of  antiquity ;  but  this  latter  intent 
does  not,  unfortunately,  appear  to  have  been  carried  out.  At 
this  date  the  Louvre  was  in  progress,  one  thousand  hands 
being  daily  employed  on  the  works ;  and  he  saw  Bernini  and 
Mansard.  He  surveyed  all  the  great  -buildings  in  Paris,  and 
drew  plans  of  them.  In  a  letter  he  says :  "  Bernini's  design 
for  the  Louvre  I  would  have  given  my  skin  for,  but  the  old 
reserved  Italian  gave  me  but  a  few  minutes'  view.  It  was  a  fine 
little  draught  on  five  pieces  of  paper,  for  which  he  had  received 
as  many  thousand  pistoles." 

After  the  nomination  of  the  commission  for  building  St. 
Paul's  there  arose  much  discussion  and  cavilling  as  to  the  plan. 
Wren's  first  design  was  to  have  had  but  one  order  and  no  side 
oratories  or  aisles,  as  appears  in  the  model  still  preserved ;  but 
this  part  of  his  intention  was  overruled  by  the  Catholic  Duke  of 
York  (James  II.),  who  looked  forward  to  the  reinstatement  of 
his  Church ;  and  notwithstanding  Wren  protested  even  to  tears 
it  was  in  vain.  Interference  in  matters  of  monumental  art,  irre- 
spective of  such  a  motive  as  actuated  the  Duke  of  York,  is 
peculiarly  incidental  to  England,  where  people  in  general  un- 
derstand so  little  of  art.  There  is  scarcely  any  great  work  of 
art,  more  especially,  perhaps,  of  architecture,  in  which  the 
artist  has  not  been  compelled  to  abandon  somewhat  of  his 
original  design.  However,  after  considerable  contention,  Wren 
received  an  express  order  from  the  King  to  proceed  ;  and  thirty- 
five  years  from  the  commencement  of  the  building  the  highest 
and  last  stone  was  laid  by  Christopher,  the  son  of  the  architect. 
Thus  was  this  splendid  edifice  completed  in  thirty-five  years 
by  one  architect,  under  one  Bishop  of  London,  at  a  cost  of 
only  ,£736,000,  which  was  raised  by  a  small  impost  on  coals ; 
while  St.  Peter's,  the  work  of  twelve  architects,  took,  under 
nineteen  pontificates,  one  hundred  and  forty-five  years  to 
build. 

One  of  the  principal  objections  urged  against  the  design  of 


442  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

St.  Paul's  is  that  Wren  adopted  two  orders  and  not  one,  as  in 
St.  Peter's ;  though  this,  as  we  have  already  stated,  was  his  orig- 
inal intention.  But  Bramante  could  resort  to  the  quarries  of 
Tivoli,  yielding  blocks  of  nine  feet  in  diameter,  for  the  columns, 
whereas  Wren  had  only  the  quarries  of  Portland,  which  could 
not  supply  blocks  of  a  greater  diameter  than  four  feet,  and 
were  even  of  this  dimension  not  easily  procurable,  on  which 
account,  and  also  that  he  might  preserve  the  just  proportions  of 
the  cornice  (which  Bramante  by  the  failure  of  the  stone  had 
been  compelled  to  diminish),  he  finally  adopted  the  two  orders. 
Wren  took  a  mean  proportion  between  the  relative  heights  of 
the  dome  of  the  Pantheon  and  of  St.  Peter's,  which  shows  its 

• 

concave  every  way,  and  is  lighted  by  the  windows  of  the  upper 
order  that  serves  for  the  abutment  of  the  dome  itself,  which 
is  two  bricks  thick,  every  five  feet  having  a  course  of  bricks 
eighteen  inches  long  bonding  through  the  whole  thickness. 

In  consequence  of  the  prejudice  in  favor  of  steeples,  and  that 
no  disappointment  might  arise  of  the  new  church  falling  short 
of  the  old  one,  Wren,  to  give  a  greater  height  than  the  cupola 
would  gracefully  admit  of,  felt  compelled  to  raise  another  struc- 
ture over  the  first  cupola.  For  this  purpose  he  constructed  a 
cone  of  brick,  so  as  to  support  the  vast  stone  lantern  which 
surmounts  it.  This  cone  was  covered  with  an  oak  roof,  and 
this  again  with  lead  in  the  same  manner  as  the  other  parts  of 
the  cathedral.  Between  this  outside  covering  and  the  brick 
cone  there  is  a  staircase  to  the  lantern,  lighted  from  the  lantern 
above.  The  inside  of  the  whole  cupola  was  painted  by  Sir 
James  Thornhill,  under  the  sanction  and  supervision  of  Wren, 
in  eight  compartments.  The  design  of  these  decorations  is 
admirably  adapted  to  its  purpose,  and  we  trust  that  the  public 
will  not  permit  it  to  be  changed,  except  the  figure  subjects  be 
repainted  in  color,  as  originally  intended. 

A  great  deal  has  been  said  about  Wren's  intentions  with 
regard  to  the  decorations  of  the  dome,  etc.  But  he  had  proba- 
bly very  little  experience  in  such  matters.  He  had  never  seen 
the  great  Italian  examples.  He  certainly  proposed  mosaic  as 
the  method,  but  his  own  notions  did  not  extend  beyond  the  sug- 


SIR    CHRISTOPHER   WREN.  443 

gestion  of  some  arabesques  in  the  cupola  and  figures  in  the 
lunettes  under  the  gallery.  This  may  be  gathered  from  the 
large  contemporary  engraving  of  the  cathedral  by  William 
Emmet.  To  so  trifling  an  extent  did  his  conceptions  in  the 
first  instance  venture  in  this  respect  that  the  major  portion  of 
the  dome  is  represented  in  the  engraving  as  panelled.  This 
panelling  was  probably  filled  up  in  order  to  make  an  even  sur- 
face for  Thornhill's  paintings.  As  matters  of  architectural  dec- 
oration Gibbon's  carvings  even  are  out  of  keeping  with  the 
edifice.  The  charge  of  plagiarizing  the  work  of  Michael  An- 
gelo  which  is  brought  against  Wren  is  sufficiently  refuted  by 
the  comparison  of  numerous  differences,  both  in  general  design 
and  in  detail. 

The  delight  which  we  may  conceive  Wren  enjoyed  in  con- 
templating the  growth  of  the  vast  edifice  which  his  creative 
genius  had  called  into  existence  was  not  undisturbed  or  unal- 
loyed. Many  improper  persons  had  been  appointed  with  him 
in  the  commission,  who,  having  selfish  interests  to  serve  and 
selfish  feelings  to  indulge,  were  thwarted  by  the  inflexible  hon- 
esty of  Wren,  who  exposed  at  once  both  their  meanness  and 
their  ignorance.  This  was  neither  forgotten  nor  forgiven.  It 
was  not  that  his  enemies  endeavored  to  retard  the  progress  of 
the  building  only.  They  procured  a  clause  to  be  inserted  sus- 
pending a  moiety  of  his  pittance  (£200  a  year)  till  the  building 
should  be  completed.  But  Wren  was  not  to  be  defeated  by  a 
cabal  without  a  struggle.  After  having  fruitlessly  applied  to 
powerful  individuals,  he  brought  his  case  before  Parliament  and 
obtained  the  justice  he  sought.  His  arrears  of  salary  (^"1,300) 
were  ordered  to  be  paid. 

At  the  death  of  Queen  Anne  Wren  lost  the  last  of  his  royal 
patrons.  His  talents,  his  uprightness,  and  his  fame  were  all  for- 
gotten. The  disposal  of  patronage  in  the  new  reign  was"  most 
corrupt.  Wren  was  turned  out  of  office  at  the  age  of  ninety  to 
make  room  for  a  court  favorite,  who  was  soon  after  disgraced 
on  account  of  his  dishonesty  as  well  as  his  utter  incapacity. 
Wren,  as  Sir  Richard  Steele  said  of  him,  possessed  a  virtue  as 
fatal  in  its  effects  as  poverty,  —  modesty !  V 


444  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Wren  retired  without  a  murmur  from  the  busy  hard  world  to 
his  home  at  Hampton  Court,  and  his  son  states  that  the  vigor 
of  his  mind  continued  with  a  vivacity  rarely  to  be  found  in  per- 
sons of  his  age.  It  was  not  till  within  a  short  period  of  his 
death  that  he  could  relinquish  the  great  aim  of  his  whole  life, 
namely,  to  be  a  benefactor  to  mankind.  His  'chief  delight  to  the 
very  close  of  his  life  was-  to  be  carried  once  a  year  to  see  his 
great  work.  His  dissolution  was  as  placid  as  the  tenor  of  his 
existence.  On  the  2$th  of  February,  1723,  his  servant,  conceiv- 
ing that  he  slept  longer  after  dinner  than  was  his  wont,  entered 
his  room  and  found  him  dead  in  his  chair.  He  received  the 
chill  honor  of  a  splendid  funeral,  and  his  remains  were  deposited 
in  the  crypt  under  the  choir  of  the  cathedral,  where  a  tablet 
bears  the  following  inscription  :  — 

"  Subtus  conditur 
Hujus  ecclesiae  et  urbis  conditor 

CH.  WREN, 
Qui  vixit  annos  ultra  nonaginta 

Non  sibi  sed  bono  publico, 

Lector,  si  monumentum  quaeris 

Circumspice. " 

Wren  was  not  only  appointed  the  architect  of  St.  Paul's,  but 
for  the  rebuilding  of  the  whole  city  after  the  Great  Fire. 
Space,  however,  will  not  permit  us  to  enlarge  on  his  magnifi- 
cent project  for  raising  a  new  metropolis  and  embanking  the 
Thames,  which  was  laid  before  the  King  and  Parliament,  but 
which  vested  interests  prevented  being  carried  out.  Among 
his  architectural  works  were  the  Monument;  Greenwich  Hospi- 
tal; Hampton  Court ;  St.  Mary-le-bow;  St.  Michael,  Cornhill ; 
St.  Dunstan  in  the  East ;  St.  Magnus,  London  Bridge ;  and  the 
celebrated  St.  Stephen,  Walbrook.  Wren  was  nominated  to 
the  Savilian  Professorship,  and  created  LL.D.  in  1651,  chosen 
Fellow  of  All  Souls  in  1653,  appointed  Professor  of  Astronomy 
in  Gresham  College  in  1657.  On  the  death  of  Sir  John  Den- 
ham  he  became  Surveyor  of  the  Works,  and  was  knighted  in 
1674.  In  1680  he  was  elected  President  of  the  Royal  Society. 
He  was  made  architect  and  commissioner  of  Chelsea  Hospital, 


GEORGE   FREDERICK  HANDEL  EStf 
born  February   xxm    MOCLXXXJX 
died  April   xi    MDCCLix^g 


GEORGE    FREDERICK    HANDEL. 


GEORGE    FREDERICK   HANDEL.  447 

and  Comptroller  of  the  Works  at  Windsor.  He  was  M.P.  for 
the  borough  of  Plympton  in  1685,  and  for  Weymouth  in  1700, 
and  was  deprived  of  the  surveyorship  of  the  royal  works  in 
1718  through  political  intrigues.  His  friend  and  associate,  Sir 
James  Thornhill,  was  dismissed  at  the  same  time,  and  died  of 
grief. 


GEORGE    FREDERICK    HANDEL. 

[BORN  1685.     DIED  1759  ] 

OF  all  the  varied  types  of  philanthropists,  philosophers,  men 
of  science,  humanitarians,  and  others,  who  have  labored 
zealously  and  unselfishly  for  the  good  of  mankind,  there  is  not 
one,  perhaps,  who  has  rendered  more  signal  service  to  all  ranks 
and  classes  of  society  than  the  musician.  He  has  not  only 
afforded  a  refined  and  elevating  occupation  to  thousands,  not 
only  invested  the  offices  of  religion  with  solace  and  consolation 
to  many  a  troubled  mind,  but  he  has,  over  and  over  again, 
placed  society  under  obligations  of  that  peculiarly  practical 
character,  which  is  invariably  regarded  as  the  true  test  of  sym- 
pathy with  one's  fellow-creatures.  The  assistance  of  his  genius 
is  enlisted  for  the  purposes  of  charity  more  frequently  than  any 
other,  not  excepting  that  of  the  dramatic  writer.  A  great  ca- 
tastrophe occurs,  a  terrible  fire,  an  appalling  inundation,  which 
deprives  hundreds,  it  may  be  thousands,  of  their  all  or  of  their 
means  of  livelihood.  The  aid  of  Handel  or  Beethoven  or 
Mozart  or  Mendelssohn,  or  others  of  the  great  brotherhood, 
is  invoked,  the  works  they  have  left  us  are  performed,  funds  are 
raised,  and  the  impoverished  relieved  and  comforted.  It  has 
been  finely  said  of  the  masterpiece  of  him  whose  life  and 
character  we  propose  'to  consider,  that  "  it  has  fed  the  hun- 
gry, clothed  the  naked,  and  fostered  the  orphan."  That  this 
is  literally  true,  appears  from  the  fact  that  within  the  space 

of  a   few  years  the  sum  of  ,£10,300  was  actually   raised   by 
29 


448  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

performances  of  the  "  Messiah,"  and  handed  over  to  one  charity 
alone,  —  the  Foundling  Hospital.  Who  can  estimate  the  vast 
good  that  must  have  been  directly  effected  in  this  one  instance 
only?  Enough,  we  may  assume,  at  any  rate,  to  entitle  its  au- 
thor to  a  high  place  among  the  "benefactors"  of  mankind. 

Like  other  men  of  genius,  George  Frederick  Handel  encoun- 
tered the  gravest  obstacles  at  the  outset  of  his  career.  Born  in 
1685,  the  son  of  a  hard-worked  doctor  in  Halle,  he  was  des- 
tined for  the  law  by  the  latter,  who  viewed  with  the  utmost  dis- 
quietude, and  even  disgust,  the  passion  for  music  displayed  by 
his  son  almost  as  soon  as  he  could  speak.  Accordingly  all 
instruments  were  removed  out  of  reach ;  he  was  not  allowed  to 
visit  friends  who  possessed  any ;  and  he  was  set  to  learn  Latin 
as  a  solid  corrective  to  his  wild  ambition.  The  boy,  however, 
was  not  to  be  daunted.  He  outwardly  submitted,  but  contrived 
after  a  time  to  procure  an  old  clavichord,  which  he  smuggled 
up  to  his  bedroom,  and  on  which  he  played  away  in  fear  and 
trembling  during  the  long  winter  nights  when  every  one  else 
was  asleep.  One  day,  when  he  was  about  five  years  old,  his 
father  set  off  to  visit  a  relative  at  the  court  of  the  Duke  of  Saxe- 
Weissenfelds.  His  little  son  implored  to  be  allowed  to  accom- 
pany him.  The  request  was  refused;  but,  nothing  daunted,  he 
started  off  and  followed,  until  his  father  was  perforce  compelled 
to  lift  him  into  the  vehicle.  On  reaching  their  destination, 
while  Herr  Handel  was  paying  his  respects  at  the  palace, 
George  wandered  off  and  found  his  way  into  the  chapel,  where, 
perceiving  the  organ  open,  he  promptly  sat  down  and  com- 
menced to  play.  The  sounds  attracted  the  Duke,  —  himself  a 
musician,  —  and  he  proceeded  to  the  gallery  and  discovered  the 
boy  at  the  instrument.  At  once  struck  with  the  marvellous  tal- 
ents he  displayed,  and  having  ascertained  that  his  father  was 
not  doing  much  to  help  him,  he  remonstrated  with  the  latter, 
and  after  some  little  difficulty  obtained  from  him  a  promise  to' 
interfere  no  further  with  the  evident  bent  of  his  son,  impressing 
upon  him  that  he  should  assist  by  every  means  in  his  power, 
instead  of  throwing  obstacles  in  the  way  of  such  wonderful  abil- 
ities. His  father  yielded,  apparently  with  rather  a  bad  grace, 


GEORGE    FREDERICK    HANDEL.  449 

and  Handel  returned  to  Halle  in  the  most  exuberant  spirits. 
To  such  an  accident  was  due,  in  all  probability,  his  preserva- 
tion from  a  profession  in  which  he  would  have  lived  and  died  a 
nonentity. 

From  that  auspicious  moment  the  history  of  Handel  is  but 
an  unbroken  record  of  the  most  intense,  unremitting  energy. 
Almost  without  cessation  from  that  date  to  the  year  of  his 
death  he  continued  to  pour  forth  the  exhaustless  resources  of 
his  prolific  imagination.  At  seven  years  of  age  he  was  master  of 
the  spinet;  at  eight  he  was  apprenticed  to  Sackau,  the  organist 
of  Halle,  where  we  find  him  composing  a  sacred  motet,  or  can- 
tata in  eight  parts,  every  week.  He  remained  here  four  years, 
during  which  his  industry  and  perseverance  enabled  him  to 
make  himself  thoroughly  acquainted,  not  only  with  the  organ, 
but  also  with  the  violin,  harpsichord,  and  hautboy.  His  predi- 
lection for  the  latter  was  very  marked,  as  may  be  seen  from  the 
frequency  with  which  he  composed  for  it  in  after  years.  At 
fourteen  he  went  to  Berlin,  where  he  attracted  the  attention  of 
the  Elector  of  Brandenburg,  who  wanted  to  send  him  to  Italy ; 
but  both  Handel  and  his  father  demurred  to  this  proposal.  He 
accordingly  returned  to  Halle,  where  his  old  master,  Sackau, 
had,  with  a  candor  that  did  him  credit,  admitted  to  every  one 
that  he  could  do  him  no  more  good,  for  the  pupil  knew  more 
than  the  master.  His  father  dying  in  1703,  he  went  to  Ham- 
burg; and  Matheson,  whom  he  met  there,  describes  the  effect 
his  first  public  performance  created,  —  an  effect  heightened  by 
the  fact  that  in  a  spirit  of  mischief  he  had  previously  affected 
great  ignorance.  Here  his  public  career  as  a  composer  practi- 
cally commenced,  for  on  the  3Oth  December,  1704,  was  per- 
formed his  first  opera,  "  Almira."  It  met  with  great  success,  as 
did  his  second  venture,  "  Nero,"  early  in  the  following  year. 

A  remarkable  feature  in  Handel's  character  appears  to  have 
been  his  independence,  and  a  certain  consciousness  of,  and 
pride  in,  his  own  genius,  which,  though  very  far  removed  from 
conceit,  caused  him  to  disdain  offers  of  assistance  of  a  flattering 
nature,  which  most  men  in  his  position  would  have  accepted 
with  effusive  gratitude.  An  instance  of  this  occurred  in  1698, 


450  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

when  he  declined  the  Elector  of  Brandenburg's  offer  to  send 
him  to  Italy.  Having,  however,  in  1709  by  his  own  industry 
and  economy  accumulated  sufficient  funds  to  take  him  there, 
he  set  out  for  the  classic  land  of  poetry,  music,  painting,  and 
sculpture,  and  within  a  few  months  of  his  arrival  at  Venice  he 
produced  the  opera  of  "  Agrippina,"  which,  composed  at  their 
request,  was  received  with  intense  enthusiasm  by  the  Vene- 
tians, and  greeted  with  cries  of  Viva  el  caro  Sassone,  —  "  Long 
live  the  dear  Saxon."  It  had  a  run  of  thirty  nights.  From 
Venice  he  went  to  Rome,  where  he  was  fortunate  enough  to 
obtain  an  introduction  to  Cardinal  Ottoboni,  one  of  the  most 
appreciative  and  generous  patrons  that  music  has  ever  seen  in 
Italy  or  elsewhere.  The  Cardinal  himself  was  a  man  of  great 
musical  taste,  and  every  week  the  grand  salon  of  his  palace  was 
thrown  open  for  the  performance  of  an  instrumental  concert. 
At  these  reunions  Handel  proved  a  great  acquisition,  and  it  was 
under  the  Cardinal's  roof  that  he  composed  "  II  Trinonfo  del 
Tempo."  From  Rome  he  went  for  a  short  time  to  Naples,  where 
his  "  Acis  e  Galatea  "  took  the  town  by  storm.  Towards  the  end 
of  1710  he  returned  to  Germany,  en  route  for  England,  and  pro- 
ceeded in  the  first  instance  to  the  court  of  the  Elector  of 
Brandenburg,  who  settled  on  him  a  pension  of  1,500  crowns 
to  induce  him  to  stay.  Handel,  however,  was  bent  on  England, 
where  he  perceived  his  genius  would  have  abundant  scope ;  and 
the  close  of  the  year  1710  saw  him  in  London,  though  he  re- 
tained his  German  pension.  In  the  spring  of  the  next  year 
the  Elector  of  Brandenburg  ascended  the  English  thrpne  as 
George  I. ;  and  it  appears  that  Handel,  in  consequence  of  his 
determination  not  to  return  to  Germany,  had  incurred  his  dis- 
pleasure. This  did  not  affect  his  reception  in  London,  however, 
which  was  exceedingly  favorable ;  and  an  opportunity  soon  oc- 
curred which  enabled  him  to  make  his  peace  with  the  King.  At 
a  water-party  given  by  the  latter,  Handel,  through  the  interest  of 
a  friend  at  court,  obtained  an  opportunity  during  the  excursion 
of  surprising  his  Majesty  with  some  exquisite  music  he  com- 
posed for  the  occasion.  So  great  was  the  King's  delight  with 
the  composition,  that,  on  hearing  whose  it  was,  he  instantly 


GEORGE   FREDERICK  HANDEL.  451 

ordered  Handel  to  be  brought  before  him,  and  there  and  then 
conferred  on  him  a  pension  of  ,£200  a  year,  which  was  soon 
afterwards  increased  by  .£200  more,  when  he  was  intrusted  with 
the  musical  education  of  the  young  princesses.  From  1715  to 
1718  he  lived  with  Lord  Burlington,  a  nobleman  who,  disgusted 
with  the  noise  and  bustle  of  the  fashionable  world  of  London, 
which  then  centred  round  the  Strand  and  Charing  Cross,  had 
built  for  himself,  we  are  quaintly  told,  "a  country  mansion  in 
the  fields  of  Piccadilly,"  to  which  he  added  a  beautiful  chapel, 
on  the  organ  of  which  Handel  found  full  scope  for  the  exercise 
of  his  wonderful  powers.  At  this  time  he  had  begun  to  attract 
attention,  and  in  1719  and  1720  he  had  reached  what  was  not 
perhaps  the  most  famous  but  certainly  the  most  enjoyable  pe- 
riod of  his  life.  The  two  latter  years  he  spent  with  the  Duke 
of  Chandos  at  Cannons.  The  Duke  was  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  men  of  his  remarkable  age.  Having  amassed  pro- 
digious wealth  as  Paymaster-General  under  Queen  Anne,  his 
chief  ambition  was  to  lavish  it  in  the  encouragement  of  art 
and  in  the  advancement  of  the  sciences.  His  residence  at  Can- 
nons, near  Edgware,  was  adorned  and  embellished  on  a  scale 
of  almost  barbaric  splendor;  and  not  the  least  remarkaBle 
thing  about  it  was,  that,  while  marble,  granite,  and  other 
indestructible  material  figured  largely  in  its  construction,  to 
the  cost  of  .£230,000,  yet  within  ten  years  of  the  Duke's  death 
there  was  not  a  trace  of  it  to  be  found,  —  a  doom  that  had  been 
foretold  for  it  in  the  most  singular  manner  by  one  who  had 
been  a  frequent  guest  within  its  walls.  Not  far  from  the  man- 
sion was  a  church  erected  in  the  Italian  style,  and  here  Handel 
was  installed  as  chapel  master.  Schoelc.her  relates  that  Dr. 
Pepusch  was  his  immediate  predecessor,  but  that  the  Duke, 
who  "  loved  to  worship  God  with  the  best  of  everything,"  one 
day  invited  Handel  to  play,  and  Pepusch,  with  a  generosity 
that  did  him  infinite  credit,  candidly  admitted  his  rival's  superi- 
ority, and  resigned  in -his  favor.  Handel  accordingly  took  up 
his  abode  for  two  years  with  the  Duke,  and  set  to  work  with 
characteristic  energy.  It  was  here  that  he  composed  the  two 
Chandos  Te  Deums  and  the  twelve  Chandos  Anthems, — works 


452  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

among  the  grandest  he  ever  wrote,  but  now  among  the  least 
known.  Indeed,  it  is  a  singular  reflection  that,  in  spite  of  the 
appreciation  of  the  great  composer  shown  by  the  present 
generation,  so  prolific  was  his  genius  that  a  large  proportion 
of  his  best  and  grandest  compositions. are  lying  at  this  mo- 
ment dormant  and  unrecognized.  Let  us  hope  that  some  enter- 
prising caterer  for  the  musical  public  will  erelong  have  the 
courage  to  disinter  these  masterpieces  now  lying  buried  amid 
the  sands  of  an  unmerited  oblivion.  Handel's  operas,  for  in- 
stance, are  now  seldom,  if  ever,  even  mentioned,  but  many  of 
them  rival  his  oratorios  in  beauty;  indeed,  some  of  the  most 
favorite  airs  in  the  latter  are  founded  on  a  theme  he  had  previ- 
ously conceived  in  an  opera.  His  Passion  Music,  too,  is  emi- 
nently beautiful,  and  it  is  said  he  himself  preferred  it  to  the 
"  Messiah." 

Handel  appears  to  have  considered  that  at  Cannons  he  had 
reached  the  highest  point  of  his  fortunes.  Under  the  protec- 
tion of  a  powerful  and  munificent  patron,  with  unlimited  means 
at  his  command  for  the  cultivation  of  his  magnificent  genius  to 
the  utmost,  with  his  reputation  as  the  first  musician  of  the  age 
fairly  established,  he  seemed  to  have  attained  the  summit  of 
his  ambition.  Yet,  at  this  time,  the  sweet  harmonies  of  the 
"  Messiah,"  the  grand  choruses  of  "  Israel  in  Egypt,"  and  the 
touching  recitatives  of  "Samson"  had  not  ravished  the  ears  and 
delighted  the  hearts  of  the  musical  world.  The  great  master- 
pieces, the  names  of  which  are  household  words  in  our  day, 
were  then  unconceived,  and  yet  their  author  was  known  as  the 
most  consummate  musician  of  the  day.  What  a  pity  it  is  that 
we  never  hear  the  works  which  had  already  gained  for  him  a 
European  reputation ! 

In  1720  Handel  entered  upon  the  direction  of  the  Royal 
Academy  of  Music,  and  plunged  into  that  troubled  career  of 
operatic  management  which  in  a  few  years  ended  in  grave 
pecuniary  embarrassment,  and  from  which  he  was  compelled  to 
retire  in  disappointment  and  defeat.  His  independence  of 
character  soon  involved  him  in  serious  difficulties  with  the 
aristocratic  patrons  of  the  Italian  Opera,  whom  in  those  days 


GEORGE   FREDERICK   HANDEL.  453 

it  was  indispensable  to  propitiate ;  and  his  frequent  quarrels  with 
the  artists  he  engaged  —  Carestini,  Cuzzoni,  and  finally  Sene- 
sino  —  eventually  culminated  in  a  rival  establishment  being 
started,  and  an  active  cabal  set  on  foot  to  injure  him.  It  is 
not  a  pleasant  task  to  recall  these  years  of  Handel's  life,  and 
we  will  not  therefore  linger  over  them.  Suffice  it  to  say  that 
in  1741  he  decided  to  leave  England  and  try  his  fortunes  in 
Ireland,  whither  he  had  been  frequently  invited.  Accordingly, 
after  paying  a  memorable  visit  to  a  friend  in  Leicestershire, 
—  memorable  for  the  fact  that  within  the  marvellous  space 
of  twenty-four  days  he  composed  both  the  "  Messiah"  and 
"  Samson,"  —  he  made  his  way  to  Chester,  whence,  having  re- 
hearsed the  "  Messiah,"  he  proceeded  to  Dublin,  and  immedi- 
ately commenced  a  series  of  concerts  which  were  well  received. 
After  a  short  delay  the  "  Messiah  "  —  or,  as  he  then  called  it,  the 
"  Sacred  Oratorio  "  —  was  performed,  and  produced  a  profound 
impression.  After  a  prosperous  stay  of  nine  months  in  Ireland, 
he  returned  to  England,  and  produced  "  Samson,"  which,  favored 
no  doubt  by  the  reception  of  the  "Messiah  "  in  Ireland,  was  wel- 
comed cordially  by  the  musical  world  of  London.  From  this 
time  Handel  continued  to  produce  oratorios  till  within  a  short 
space  of  his  death  ;  but,  with  the  exception  of  the  two  just  men- 
tioned, they  were  almost  entirely  pecuniary  failures.  Nothing 
daunted  by  these  repeated  failures,  he  again  plunged  into  the 
cares  and  anxieties  of  management,  and  with  an  almost  incred- 
ible fertility  wrote  opera  after  opera,  of  which  no  sooner  was 
one  produced  than  it  was  withdrawn  for  the  next.  Many  of 
these  he  considered  among  his  finest  works,  but  they  quite 
failed  to  satisfy  the  vitiated  musical  taste  of  that  day.  Handel, 
however,  remunerated  his  performers  so  generously  that  in 
1745  he  found  himself  again  in  difficulties,  and  compelled 
temporarily  to  suspend  payment.  Thanks,  however,  in  great 
measure  to  the  steady  friendship  of  George  II.,  he  persevered, 
and,  being  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  permanent  income  of  £600  a 
year  from  pensions  granted  him  by  the  Court,  he  gradually 
retrieved  his  fortunes,  and  spent  the  closing  years  of  his  life  in 
comfort. 


454  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Time  rolled  on,  and  when  past  seventy  Handel  had  the  mis- 
fortune to  become  almost  totally  blind ;  but  the  energy  that  had 
stood  him  in  such  good  stead  in  earlier  life  did  not  desert  him 
now,  and  the  fine  oratorio  of "  Judas  Maccabaeus,"  composed 
after  his  misfortune  had  overtaken  him,  testified  that  neither  his 
genius  nor  his  courage  had  departed  with  his  sight.  He  con- 
tinued up  to  the  end  to  conduct  his  own  oratorios  at  the  organ, 
the  only  difference  he  made  being  to  improvise  the  accompani- 
ments, the  orchestra  waiting  for  the  signal  of  a  shake  from  him 
to  introduce  the  choruses. 

It  must  have  been  a  touching  sight  to  see  the  grand  old  man 
led  on  to  the  stage,  tottering  and  helpless  till  he  was  seated  at 
the  organ,  when,  as  it  were,  his  genius  would  come  to  his  aid, 
his  imagination  would  take  fire,  and  he  would  descant  with  all 
his  old  power  and  vivacity.  His  last  public  appearance  was 
on  the  6th  of  April,  1759,  and  he  died  peacefully  that  day  week, 
the  1 3th,  —  a  fancy  he  had  frequently  expressed  that  he  might 
die  on  a  Friday  being  thus  strangely  gratified.  He  was  buried 
in  Westminster  Abbey ;  and  amid  all  the  mighty  dead  who  lie 
there,  his  resting-place  is  not  .the  least  illustrious.  Of  him  it 
may  be  truly  said  that  he  devoted  a  lifetime  to  one  of  the  most 
ennobling  of  all  avocations,  which  he  did  more  to  ennoble  than 
any  that  went  before  or  have  come  since.  His  style  will  be 
ever  memorable,  no  less  for  the  loftiness  of  his  themes  than 
for  the  grandeur  and  simplicity  of  his  conceptions.  While  his 
compositions  attract  by  their  sweet  and  touching  harmonies, 
they  inspire  awe  and  solemnity  by  the  majesty  of  their  cho- 
ruses. In  this  combination  Handel  appears  to  surpass  all 
musicians,  though  in  elegance  and  brilliancy  others  may  bear 
away  the  palm.  The  former  are,  perhaps,  the  characteristics 
which  the  ordinary  mind  can  appreciate  best,  and  they  in  all 
probability  account  for  the  popularity  of  those  compositions  of 
the  great  master  in  which  they  appear  most  conspicuous. 

He  was  bitterly  attacked  during  his  management  of  the 
opera,  but  he  opposed  to  all  the  intrigues  and  machinations 
directed  against  him  the  "  triple  brass "  of  an  indifference 
founded  on  a  consciousness  of  his  own  genius.  When  person- 


WILLIAM     HOGARTH. 


WILLIAM    HOGARTH.  457 

ally  crossed,  however,  his  outbreaks  were  vehement,  and  the 
presence  of  royalty  itself  never  prevented  the  free  expression  of 
his  indignation,  when,  during  the  performance  of  any  of  his 
works,  conversation  was  indulged  in  by  those  present,  or  want 
of  appreciation  otherwise  shown.  But  these  were  faults  inci- 
dental to  his  bold,  self-reliant  nature,  and  as  such  should  meet 
with  the  forbearance  of  the  historian.  Take  him  for  all  in  all, 
it  will  be  long  ere  the  world  looks  upon  his  like  again,  —  long 
before  the  creations  of  his  magnificent  genius  cease  to  move  the 
hearts  and  to  sway  the  imaginations  of  mankind. 


WILLIAM    HOGARTH. 

[BORN  1697.     DIED  1764.] 

~\  /TORE  than  a  century  ago  the  fashion  in  art,  in  architecture, 
•*"•*•  and  in  literature  was  classic.  W.e  see  the  evidences  in 
the  dreary  edifices  of  that  time,  and  we  wonder  at  the  statues 
then  erected  of  Englishmen  shivering  in  the  toga  or  strutting  in 
the  buskin  of  antiquity.  Literature  was  even  more  stilted, 
dreary,  and  unnatural.  When  Benjamin  West  painted  the 
death  of  General  Wolfe,  he  scandalized  the  world  of  art  critics 
by  the  innovation  of  representing  him  in  the  costume  of  the 
time.  Hitherto  most  pictures  had  consisted  of  Romans  or 
Greeks ;  and  when  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  a  great  stickler  for  clas- 
sicality,  saw  the  picture,  he  was  compelled  (though  after  great 
hesitation)  to  exclaim,  "  I  am  wrong,  and  West  is  right."  To 
West  seems  to  have  been  given  the  entire  credit  of  the  reform. 
In  this,  however,  William  Hogarth  has  been  overlooked,  —  a 
natural  consequence,  probably,  of  the  fact  that  he  was  never 
"  fashionable."  Charles  Lamb  has  pointed  out,  with  his  accus- 
tomed felicity  but  with  more  than  ordinary  force,  the  intense 
power  possessed  by  Hogarth  in  raising  the  humblest  and  most 
wretched  scene  into  a  subject  of  the  highest  moral  interest. 


OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS.  ' 

He  is  very  happy,  for  instance,  in  his  description  of  the  subject 
of  Gin  Street.  He  makes  the  remark,  "  I  have  seen  many  turn 
away  from  it,  not  being  able  to  bear  it.  The  same  persons 
would  perhaps  have  looked  with  complacency  on  Poussin's 
celebrated  picture  of  the  'Plague  at  Athens.'" 

Although  taste  has  greatly  changed  since  Hogarth's  time, 
and  those  of  his  works  which  had  much  of  the  coarseness  of 
the  period  never  now  see  the  light,  yet  his  grander  productions 
—  those  in  which  he  attacked  the  vices  and  follies  of  the  age  — 
are  classed,  and  most  deservedly,  in  the  front  rank  of  art.  Rising 
from  obscurity,  he  made  a  name  even  in  the  age  in  which  he 
lived,  when  there  was  but  little  patronage  for  true  merit.  He 
says,  in  his  Memoirs :  "  I  was  born  in  the  city  of  London, 
November  10,  1697.  My  father's  pen,  like  that  of  many  au- 
thors, did  not  do  more  than  put  me  in  a  way  of  shifting  for 
myself.  As  I  had  naturally  a  good  eye  and  a  fondness  for 
drawing,  shows  of  all  sorts  gave  me  uncommon  pleasure  when 
an  infant,  and  mimicry  common  to  all  children  was  remarkable 
in  me.  An  early  access  to  a  neighboring  painter  drew  my 
attention  from  play,  and  I  was  at  every  possible  opportunity 
employed  in  making  drawings."  His  father  consulted  his  son's 
indications  of  talent  as  far  as  his  limited  means  would  allow, 
and  he  was  articled  to  a  silver-plate,  or  what  is  technically 
called  a  "  bright,"  engraver.  But  he  aspired  to  something 
better  than  engraving  griffins  on  teapots,  and  worked  with  en- 
thusiasm to  make  himself  a  perfect  draughtsman.  Mr.  George 
Augustus  Sala,  in  his  celebrated  series  of  essays  on  William 
Hogarth,  published  in  the  early  numbers  of  the  "Cornhill  Mag- 
azine," describes  this  portion  of  the  great  artist's  career  in  a 
most  interesting  and  exhaustive  manner ;  in  fact,  the  whole  of 
the  papers  possess  remarkable  power.  On  leaving  his  master 
he  established  himself  in  business  on  his  own  account,  and  con- 
tinued to  practise  the  trade  to  which  he  had  been  bred,  —  en- 
graving shop  bills,  coats  of  arms,  and  figures  on  tankards,  etc. 
He  then  got  employment  in  making  designs  and  engraving 
frontispieces  for  publishers ;  the  most  important  of  these  was 
a  set  to  illustrate  Butler's  "Hudibras,"  published  in  1726.  Soon 


WILLIAM    HOGARTH.  459 

afterwards  he  began  to  seek  employment  as  a  portrait  painter. 
These  performances  were  generally  small  family  pictures,  which 
he  calls  "  conversation  pieces."  They  are  about  twelve  to  fif- 
teen inches  in  height ;  and  as  his  prices  were  low  they  were 
very  popular.  In  1729  an  event  of  a  romantic  nature  somewhat 
varied  his  pursuits,  —  he  contracted  a  stolen  marriage  with  the 
daughter  of  Sir  James  Thornhill,  the  then  fashionable  painter 
and  member  of  Parliament.  Sir  James  at  first  was  furious,  but 
after  some  time  he  relented,  and  a  reconciliation  was  effected. 
It  is  said  that  the  admiration  Sir  James  had  for  a  series  of  prints 
produced  by  Hogarth  in  1731,  and  entitled  the  "  Harlot's  Prog- 
ress," was  the  cause  of  his  forgiveness.  These  were  very  popu- 
lar and  created  a  great  sensation.  Success  encoUraged  Hogarth 
to  produce  another  set  in  1735,  which  he  called  the  "Rake's 
Progress ;  "  but  the  most  popular  of  the  whole  series  then,  as 
now,  was  the  "  Marriage  a  la  Mode."  These  were  not  engraved  till 
1745.  For  the  "Harlot's  Progress"  twelve  hundred  subscribers' 
names  were  entered.  The  subject  was  dramatized  in  various 
forms,  and  it  was  even  drawn  on  fans.  The  merits  of  the  pic- 
tures, however,  were  not  appreciated,  and  Hogarth,  too  proud  to 
reduce  his  prices,  determined  to  put  them  up  to  public  sale ; 
but  instead  of  the  usual  form  of  auction,  he  devised  a  complex 
plan  with  the  view  of  excluding  picture-dealers,  to  whom  he 
had  a  mortal  aversion  (an  aversion  which  seems  still  to  per- 
meate the  profession),  and  to  induce  men  of  wealth  and  position 
who  wished  to  purchase  to  judge  for  themselves.  But  the 
scheme  failed.  Nineteen  of  the  principal  pictures  produced 
only  £427  7-r.,  not  averaging  £22  los.  each.  The  "  Harlot's 
Progress"  passed  into  the  possession  of  Mr.  Beckford,  of  Font- 
hill  Abbey;  but  five  pictures  were  destroyed  at  the  fire.  The 
"  Rake's  Progress  "  was  purchased  by  Sir  John  Soane,  the  emi- 
nent architect,  and  are  still  to  be  seen  in  the  museum  in  Lin- 
coln's Inn  Fields.  "Marriage  a  la  Mode"  was  sold  in  1750, 
when  only  one  bidder  appeared,  and  to  him  they  were  knocked 
down  at  the  preposterously  low  price  of  £>\  15  los.  Mr.  Anger- 
stein  purchased  them  for  £1,381,  and  they  are  now  in  the 
National  Gallery.  It  would  be  a  curious  thing  to  know  how 


460  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

much  they  would  bring  at  the  present  moment.  In  judging  of 
Hogarth's  talent  there  can  be  but  little  difference  of  opinion. 
He  possessed  that  essential  quality  in  a  great  artist  of  inventing 
his  own  subject,  —  unlike  many  of  the  profession,  who  go  to 
other  people's  brains  for  their  pictures.  In  fact,  whenever  he 
had  to  take  a  subject  from  any  one  else  he  always  failed.  Evi- 
dence of  this  fact  may  be  seen  at  the  Magdalen  Hospital, — the 
"  St.  Paul  Preaching." 

When  we  look  at  the  absolute  work  in  his  pictures,  it  is  sim- 
ply marvellous.  The  painting  of  the  countess's  head  in  the 
second  picture  of  "  Marriage  a  la  Mode  "  is  a  wonderful  speci- 
men of  technical  skill.  Again,  how  beautifully  the  perspective 
of  the  background  is  carried  !  One  cannot  help  wondering  if 
Hogarth  really  took  out  his  perspective  himself,  instead  of  call- 
ing in  architectural  aid,  as  is  done  by  some  of  our  modern  paint- 
ers. In  a  brief  article  like  the  present  it  is  impossible  to  dwell 
long  on  the  wondrous  beauties  of  that  one  series  alone ;  but  as 
long  as  art  is  appreciated,  those  six  pictures  will  always  be 
looked  upon  as  the  production  of  a  man  of  the  highest  genius. 
At  one  time  his  earnings  must  have  been  wretchedly  inadequate 
to  his  sustenance,  and  he  must  have  made  most  of  his  income, 
to  use  a  well-known  phrase,  from  "  Pot-boilers."  He  has  left 
an  account  of  his  own  life  which  contains  some  curious  and 
interesting  matter  concerning  his  own  modes  and  motives  of 
thought.  He  also  wrote  verses,  which,  though  containing  some 
humor,  were  rugged,  and  in  some  cases  coarse.  His  most  im- 
portant literary  work  is  the  "  Analysis  of  Beauty,"  in  which  he 
endeavored  to  fix  the  principles  of  taste.  He  struck  out  the 
idea  that  the  fundamental  form  of  beauty,  either  in  nature  or  in 
art,  is  the  serpentine  line.  The  work  shows  great  originality 
and  some  power  of  analysis.  William  Hogarth  marks  an  era, 
so  to  say,  in  English  art,  and  his  name  is  undoubtedly  a 
"  household  word."  It  seems  a  disgrace  to  his  profession  that 
the  house  in  which  he  lived  so  long  at  Chiswick  is  going  to 
decay.  True,  one  artist  of  well-known  fame,  a  resident  in  the 
neighborhood,  tried  to  buy  it  when  it  was  put  up  for  auction ; 
but  a  tradesman  in  the  vicinity,  fancying  from  the  anxiety 


WILLIAM    HOGARTH.  461 

shown  by  the  artist  that  there  was  some  unknown  pecuniary 
value  in  the  place,  outbid  him,  and  the  country  residence  of 
the  great  English  artist  is  now  a  dairy.  The  latter  days  of 
Hogarth  were  imbittered  with  his  well-known  squabble  with 
\Vilkes.  It  was  a  quarrel  unworthy  of  either  the  painter  or  the 
politician.  He  spent  the  summer  of  1764  at  Chiswick,  and  the 
quiet  and  fresh  air  seemed  to  revive  his  strength  so  much  that 
all  thought  he  would  long  be  spared.  But  the  amendment  was 
only  temporary,  and  on  the  26th  day  of  October  of  the  same 
year  this  truly  great  English  painter  passed  to  his  rest. 

The  picturesque  churchyard  of  Chiswick  contains  the  plain 
tomb  erected  to  his  memory,  which  tomb  some  years  ago  was 
falling  into  decay,  and  which  was,  by  the  liberality  of  a  lover  of 
art,  put  into  a  decent  state.  How  odd  it  seems  that  it  is  often 
to  private  generosity  we  have  to  look  to  keep  for  us  the  memo- 
rials of  our  great  teachers !  Hogarth's  great  friend,  the  friend 
he  had  so  often  painted  and  the  friend  to  whom  he  was  so 
greatly  attached,  wrote  the  epitaph  on  his  tomb :  — 

"  Farewell,  great  painter  of  mankind, 
Who  reached  the  noblest  point  of  art, 
Whose  pictured  moral  charms  the  eye, 
And  through  the  eye  correct  the  heart. 
If  genius  fire  thee,  reader,  stay  ; 
If  nature  touch  thee,  drop  a  tear  ; 
If  neither  move  thee,  turn  away, 
For  Hogarth's  honored  dust  lies  here." 

D.  GARRICK. 

Ruskin,  the  great  art  critic  of  the  age,  says  that  posterity  will 
scarcely  care  about  our  pictures  representing  costume  and  man- 
ners of  the  Middle  Ages,  but  will  probably  be  much  more  inter- 
ested in  pictures  depicting  the  costume  and  manners  of  the  day 
at  the  present  time.  Has  not  Hogarth  proved  this  opinion  to 
be  right?  What  a  source  of  interest  it  is  to  go  through  folios 
of  his  engravings,  to  dwell  on  his  pictures,  to  study  the  cos- 
tumes, the  furniture  of  the  rooms !  He  painted  life  as  he  saw 
it,  and  consequently  in  his  work  there  is  that  quality  of  individ- 
uality which  Stamps  every  picture  that  is  painted  from  nature. 


462  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Setting  aside  the  great  artistic  quality  of  his  works,  their  truth- 
fulness, as  borne  out  by  the  literature  of  the  day,  gives  them 
for  the  student  a  peculiar  value,  and  places  them  among  the 
truly  reliable  sources  of  contemporary  history. 


JOSIAH    WEDGWOOD. 

[BORN  JULY,  1730.    DIED  JAN.  3,  1795.] 

THERE  are  few  lives  the  importance  of  whose  bearings  on 
industry  and  commerce  it  is  more  difficult  to  summarize 
than  that  of  Josiah  Wedgwood,  the  "  father  of^British  potters;  " 
and  fewer  still  whose  influence  has  been,  and  will  continue  to 
be,  so  widely  felt. 

Born  in  an  age  when  real  art,  as  connected  with  fictile  manu- 
factures, was  next  to  unknown,  surrounded  by  difficulties  not 
easy  to  surmount,  with  ignorance  to  deal  with  on  every  side, 
and  possessed  of  anything  but  a  robust  constitution  to  grapple 
with  his  many  obstacles,  Josiah  Wedgwood,  by  his  own  indus- 
try, his  natural  genius,  his  keen  perception  for  the  beautiful, 
his  innate  love  for  science,  and  his  own  indomitable  persever- 
ance, made  for  himself  a  name  and  a  fame  that  are  imperish- 
able, and  gave  that  impetus  to  the  potter's  art  that  has  resulted 
in  its  becoming  not  only  one  of  the  most  beautiful,  but  assur- 
edly the  most  important  and  successful,  of  British  branches  of 
industry.  He  came  into  the  world  a  member  of  a  family  of  em- 
inent potters,  in  the  midst  of  a  district  consecrated  to  that  art, 
at  a  time  when  rapid  strides  had  begun  to  be  made  in  the  form 
and  the  decoration  as  well  as  in  the  "  body  "  of  various  wares ; 
and  he  devoted  himself  untiringly,  throughout  his  long  and  busy 
life,  to  the  improvement  and  development  of  that  art,  with  a 
result  that  was  as  rapid  as  it  has  been  firm  and  enduring. 

Starting  in  life  the  youngest  of  a  family  of  thirteen  children ; 
losing-  his  father,  Thomas  Wedgwood,  the  well-to-do  potter  of 


30 


JOSIAH    WEDGEWOOD. 


JOSIAH   WEDGWOOD. 

the  Churchyard  Works  at  Burslem,  when  only  nine  years  of 
age ;  apprenticed  at  the  age  of  fourteen  to  his  brother  Thomas 
for  five  years;  afflicted  with  illness  and  incapacitated  from 
much  bodily  labor  during  his  apprenticeship;  thrown  on  his 
own  resources  when  only  a  little  over  nineteen  with  a  legacy  of 
twenty  pounds  to  start  in  life ;  entering  into  partnership  first 
with  Harrison,  a  practical  potter,  and  next  with  Whieldon,  the 
most  eminent  potter  of  his  day,  and  with  whom  he  produced 
many  new  varieties  of  wares  and  glazes ;  commencing  business 
entirely  on  his  own  account,  and  working  energetically  at  his 
trade,  —  Josiah  Wedgwood  found  his  genius  and  enterprise  so 
well  rewarded  that  he  gradually  increased  his  operations  until 
they  resulted  in  the  founding  of  a  new  village,  "  Etruria,"  by 
him,  and  the  establishment  of  a  trade  that  has  been  of  imme- 
diate practical  benefit  to  thousands  of  people  in  the  district,  and,  • 
collaterally,  to  the  whole  of  the  civilized  world. 

He  thus,  by  improving  and  assisting  to  develop  an  important 
branch  of  industry,  and  by  his  many  and  valuable  inventions 
and  discoveries  connected  with  that  art,  became  a  benefactor 
to  mankind,  and  sowed  the  seeds  from  which  have  sprung 
England's  proud  pre-eminence  in  ceramic  art. 

But  it  was  not  only  in  pottery  that  Wedgwood  benefited 
mankind.  He  did  much  to  improve  the  roads  in  his  native 
county  "  as  a  means  to  the  end  "  of  developing  its  trade,  and 
he  was  one  of  the  most  energetic  of  the  promoters  and  sup- 
porters of  water  communication  by  means  of  canals  between 
town  and  town.  In  conjunction  with  his  friend  Brindley,  and 
with  the  incentive  of  the  Duke  of  Bridgewater's  success  and  his 
ultimate  aid,  the  "  Grand  Trunk  Canal "  was  formed,  and  the 
proud  task  of  cutting  the  first  sod  was  assigned  to  him.  "  If  for 
no  other  reason,"  it  has  been  remarked,  "  the  part  he  took  in 
carrying  out  to  a  successful  issue  the  scheme  of  canal  commu- 
nication, to  which  undoubtedly  the  Staffordshire  Potteries  owe 
their  prosperous  increase,  would  fully  entitle  Josiah  Wedgwood 
to  the  thanks  of  his  country  and  to  be  ranked  among  the  fore- 
most benefactors  of  mankind." 

Of  the  character  of  Josiah  Wedgwood  it  has  been  written 


466  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

in  these  words,  that  he  was  "  one  of  the  most  wonderful  of  all 
the  '  self-made  men '  a  nation  of  great  and  noble  geniuses  has 
ever  produced.  Not  only  did  he  stand  out  as  a  clear  statue 
from  the  men  of  his  own  time,  but  in  high  and  bold  relief  from 
those  of  every  time  and  every  age.  Original  in  thought,  far- 
seeing  and  clear  in  his  perceptions;  with  a  mind  capable  ot 
grasping  the  most  difficult  problems  and  working  them  out  to 
a  successful  issue ;  with  a  firmness  of  purpose  and  a  determina- 
tion which  carried  him  safely  through  all  his  schemes ;  a  power 
of  wrestling  with  and  overthrowing  every  obstacle  which  came 
in  his  way;  a  genius  which  soared  high  above  his  fellow- 
laborers  in  art,  and  led  them  on  to  success  in  paths  unknown  to 
them  before ;  with  an  energy,  a  perseverance,  and  an  industry 
which  never  flagged ;  an  unswerving  fixedness  of  purpose  which 
yielded  not  to  circumstances,  however  adverse  they  might  seem  ; 
with  a  heart  warmed  by  kindliness,  goodness,  and  charity  to  all 
men,  and  a  mind  imbued  with  that  true  religion,  a  conscientious 
discharge  of  his  duty  to  God  and  man;  with  a  strict  probity 
and  a  scrupulous  adherence  to  all  that  was  honorable  and 
right, — Josiah  Wedgwood  hewed  out  for  himself  a  path  through 
the  world-jungle  which  surrounded  him  that  led  him  to  the 
highest  point  of  worldly  prosperity,  and  earned  for  him  a  name 
which  has  been,  and  always  will  be,  received  with  honor."  It  is 
not  always  that  laudation  on  tablet  or  tombstone  is  deserved  by 
those  whose  memory  is  intended  to  be  perpetuated,  but  in  the 
case  of  Josiah  Wedgwood  the  lines  in  Stoke  Church  were  truly 
merited.  The  tablet,  besides  bearing  a  Portland  and  an  Etrus- 
can vase,  has  a  sculptured  medallion  of  the  "  father  of  potters," 
Josiah  Wedgwood, 

"  Who  converted  a  rude  and  inconsiderable  manufacture  into 

an  elegant 

Art  and  an  important  part  of  national  commerce. 
By  these  services  to  his  country  he  acquired  an  ample  fortune, 

Which  he  blamelessly  and  reasonably  enjoyed, 
And  generously  dispensed  for  the  reward  of  merit  and  the 

relief  of  Misfortune. 

His  mind  was  inventive  and  original,  yet  perfectly  sober 
and  well-regulated ; 


JOHN     FLAXMAN. 


JOHN    FLAXMAN.  469 

His  character  was  decisive  and  commanding,  without  rashness 

or  arrogance  ; 

His  probity  was  inflexible,  his  kindness  unwearied  ; 

His  manners  simple  and  dignified,  and  the  cheerfulness  of 

his  temper  was  the  natural  reward  of  the  activity 

of  his  pure  and  useful  life. 

He  was  most  loved  by  these  who  knew  him  best, 
And  he  has  left  indelible  impressions  of  affection  and 

veneration 

on  the  minds  of  his  family,  who  have  erected  this 
monument  to  his  memory." 


JOHN    FLAXMAN. 

[BORN  1755.    DIED  1826.] 

"  r  I  "HE  uneventful  lives  of  artists  "  is  a  common  platitude, 
-••  whereas  the  execution  of  grand  works  in  painting  and 
sculpture  is  among  the  greatest  events  in  history,  and  the 
thinking  world  shows  that  it  considers  them  to  be  so  by  its 
undying  appreciation.  Of  all  the  eventful  history  of  mediaeval 
Italy,  its  art  events  are  beyond  all  compare  the  greatest; 
and  now  that  all  her  stage  properties  and  pageantry  are  rele- 
gated to  oblivion,  her  poets  and  artists  reign  supreme.  To 
common  minds  an  event  is  only  some  occurrence  which  strikes 
them  between  the  eyes  of  consciousness  with  mischievous  vio- 
lence. Such  passively  witness  the  virtue  of  the  modest  and 
unobtrusively  progressive,  but  pass  it  by  with  very  slight,  if 
any,  consideration.  Thus  it  was  with  the  genius  of  John  Flax- 
man,  whose  life  was  in  the  better  sense  of  eventfulness  grandly 
eventful,  but  who  was  allowed  to  enter  into  a  European  fame 
before  Englishmen  had  at  all  adequately  recognized  what  man- 
ner of  man  they  had  as  a  glorious  possession. 

In  forming  an  estimate  of  Flaxman's  genius,  we    must  not 
lose  sight  of  the  nature  of  his  constitution ;   his  delicate  frame 


470  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

emancipated  his  intellect,  and  left  it  supreme.  His  works,  there- 
fore, although  they  manifest  to  the  full  a  spiritual  and  concep- 
tive  excellence,  often  lack,  especially  the  larger,  some  degree 
of  physical  completeness.  This  is  a  defect ;  for  perfect  art,  as 
the  perfect  manhood,  consists  in  the  combination  of  the  two. 
Art  to  be  complete  must  be  perfect  in  both  form  and  spirit. 
It  is  useless  to  urge  that  the  intellectual  conception  is,  in  all 
the  arts,  the  "  better  part;"  for  should  a  beautiful  thought  be 
imperfectly  embodied,  it  is  sent  forth  halt  and  limping  to  the 
world,  and  fully  justifies  the  reproaches  of  criticism.  To  note 
a  fine  thought  would  be  sufficient  if  the  different  arts  did  not 
demand  special  forms  of  expression,  and  perfection  in  those 
forms.  But  such  a  spirit  as  that  of  Flaxman  descending  upon 
an  art  which  had  been,  till  his  coming,  of  the  earth  earthy, 
breathed  into  it  at  last  the  breath  of  life,  and  for  this  benefac- 
tion we  must  be  devoutly  thankful. 

John  Flaxman  was  born  in  York,  July  6,  1/55.  He  did  not, 
as  many  celebrated  artists  have  done,  work  his  way  from 
some  uncongenial  sphere  to  art,  but  was  early  and  quietly  in- 
ducted into  his  profession,  and  must  have  very  early  become 
acquainted  with  the  technique  of  sculpture  through  his  father, 
who  was  employed  for  many  years  by  the  sculptors  Roubillac 
and  Scheemakers  as  a  moulder,  and  who  himself  kept  a  shop 
for  the  sale  of  plaster  figures  from  the  antique.  This  shop  was 
the  young  Flaxman's  first  art-school,  for  the  delicate  boy  very 
early  took  to  the  pencil  and  to  kindred  studies.  As  he  ad- 
vanced in  years,  and  improved  in  health  and  strength,  he  seems 
to  have  resolved  to  become  a  sculptor,  and  in  due  course 
became  a  student  of  the  Royal  Academy.  One  of  the  earliest 
to  recognize  the  boy's  talents  was  the  Rev.  Mr.  Mathew,  to 
whose  wife,  a  gifted  and  agreeable  woman,  he  was  soon  after 
introduced.  He  was  some  eleven  years  old  when  he  first  saw 
this  fascinating  lady  at  her  house  in  Rathbone  Place,  where 
thenceforth  he  frequently  repaired  to  hear  her  read  Homer  and 
Virgil,  and  discourse  upon  sculpture  and  verse.  Here  he  was 
encouraged  to  study  the  classics.  However,  there  is  no  evi- 
dence that  he  ever  attained  to  any  great  proficiency  in  these 


JOHN    FLAXMAN.  471 

studies.  His  education  was  of  a  very  desultory  kind ;  he 
attended  no  college,  and  distinguished  himself  in  no  eminent 
seminary;  he  gathered  his  knowledge  from  many  sources,  and 
mastered  what  he  wanted  by  some  of  those  ready  methods 
which  form  one  of  the  strongest  proofs  of  genius.  It  is  said 
that  while  Mrs.  Mathew  read  Homer  he  sat  beside  her  making 
sketches  of  the  subjects  of  such  passages  as  caught  his  fancy. 
These  juvenile  productions  are  still  preserved.  The  taste  dis- 
played in  them  induced  Mr.  Crutchley,  of  Sunning  Hill  Park, 
to  commission  him  for  a  set  of  six  drawings.  The  praise  be- 
stowed on  those  early  and  imperfect  works  was  grateful  to  the 
young  artist. 

In  his  fifteenth  year  Flaxman  became  a  student  of  the  Royal 
Academy.  In  1770  he  exhibited  a  figure  of  Neptune  in  wax, 
and  in  1827  the  statue  of  John  Kemble  in  marble.  These  were 
his  first  and  latest  works,  and  between  them  lies  a  period  of 
fifty-seven  years,  intensely  devoted  to  the  pursuit  of  sculpture. 
He  was  soon  known  at  the  Academy  as  an  assiduous  and 
enthusiastic  student.  His  small  slim  form,  his  grave  and 
thoughtful  looks,  his  unwearied  application  and  undoubted 
capacity,  won  upon  the  hearts  of  all.  who  watched  him,  and 
he  began  to  be  spoken  of  as  one  from  whom  much  was  to  be 
expected.  Among  the  students  his  companions  were  Blake 
and  Stothard.  During  his  teens  he  made  some  attempts  with 
oil  colors,  and  it  is  said  with  such  success  that  one  of  these 
was  afterwards  sold  as  the  work  of  an  old  master. 

After  gaining  the  silver  medal  he  entered  the  contest  for  the 
gold  with  one  Engleheart,  and  lost.  The  general  opinion  was 
in  favor  of  Flaxman's  work,  but  the  Royal  Academy  approved 
and  rewarded  his  rival's.  Flaxman,  although  somewhat  morti- 
fied, redoubled  his  exertions.  But  he  had  now  to  win  his  bread, 
and  to  turn  somewhat  aside  from  the  paths  that  he  most  loved. 
It  is  as  well,  perhaps,  that  men  of  imaginative  genius  should 
serve  an  apprenticeship  in  the  rough  workshop  of  the  world. 
During  this  period  he  designed  and  modelled  for  the  Wedg- 
woods. This  employment  was  so  far  profitable  that  it  main- 
tained him ;  but  then  he  was  a  frugal  person.  From  boyhood 


472  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

to  old  age  he  lived  the  same  quiet,  simple,  secluded  sort  of  life, 
working  by  day  and  sketching  from  the  Bible,  the  "  Pilgrim's 
Progress,"  and  the  poets,  and  reading  by  night. 

During  the  ten  years  which  preceded  1782,  Flaxman  exhib- 
ited some  thirteen  works  at  the  Royal  Academy,  including  por- 
traits in  wax  and  terra-cotta,  also  a  sketch  for  a  monument  to 
Chatterton.  The  subjects  were  "  Pompey  after  his  Defeat," 
"  Agrippa  after  the  Death  of  Germanicus,"  "  Hercules  with  the 
Poisoned  Shirt,"  "  Acis  and  Galatea,"  the  "  Death  of  Caesar," 
etc.  All  were  less  than  half  life,  and  none  of  them  were  trans- 
ferred to  the  marble,  which  would  have  been  the  case  if  patron- 
age had  smiled.  In  1782  he  quitted  the  paternal  roof  for  a 
small  house  and  studio  in  Wardour  Street,  there  collected  casts 
from  the  antique,  etc.,  set  his  sketches  in  order,  and  took  unto 
himself  a  wife,  Ann  Denman.  She  was  amiable,  had  a  taste  for 
art  and  literature,  and  was  an  enthusiastic  admirer  of  his  genius. 
When  the  old  bachelor,  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  heard  of  the  mar- 
riage, he  told  Flaxman  that  he  was  ruined  as  an  artist.  Upon 
this  he  resolved  to  visit  Rome,  and  to  negative  Sir  Joshua's 
prediction.  Between  his  marriage  and  departure  for  Italy  he 
exhibited  seven  works,  among  these  the  monuments  to  Collins 
the  poet  and  to  Mrs.  Morley,  the  one  for  Chichester  and  the 
other  for  Gloucester  Cathedral.  Having  disposed  of  all  his 
works,  he  set  off  for  Rome  in  the  spring  of  1787. 

In  Rome  he  was  naturally  struck  with  the  beauty  of  the 
remains  of  ancient  art  as  well  as  with  the  grandeur  of  the  mod- 
ern. Flaxman,  fully  understanding  the  motive  of  mediaeval 
Italian  art,  conceived  the  design  of  devoting  his  powers  to  the 
Protestant  cause,  and  the  greater  and  most  noble  portion  of  his 
works  bear  the  impress  of  this  resolve.  His  life-work  was  sym- 
bolized in  his  St.  Michael  beating  down  Satan ;  very  many  of 
his  works  illustrate,  in  various  forms,  the  triumph  of  Good  over 
Evil.  In  such  designs  his  genius  was  pre-eminent. 

It  was  in  Rome  that  he  executed  his  famous  outline  illustra- 
tions of  Homer,  ^Eschylus,  and  Dante,  which  have  earned  for 
him  a  European  reputation.  Patrons  now  began  to  make 
their  appearance.  For  Mr.  Thomas  Hope  he  executed  a  group 


JOHN    FLAXMAN.  4/3 

of  Cephalus  and  Aurora;  for  the  eccentric  Frederick,  fourth 
Earl  of  Bristol,  a  group  of  four  figures  of  heroic  size,  represent- 
ing the  fury  of  Athamas,  for  the  ridiculously  inadequate  sum  of 
£600.  He  next  undertook  the  restoration  of  that  splendid 
torso,  the  "  Torso,"  which  is  generally  supposed  to  be  a  frag- 
ment of  a  Hercules.  The  remains  of  ancient  sculpture  in  Italy 
engaged  not  a  little  of  Flaxman's  attention.  He  made  many 
drawings,  and  still  more  numerous  memoranda,  subsequently 
embodied  in  his  lectures  on  sculpture. 

After  spending  upwards  of  seven  years  in  Rome,  thus  assidu- 
ously working  as  well  as  comparing  the  extravagance  of  Bernini 
with  the  temperance  of  the  antique,  and  in  disciplining  his  eye 
in  a  severe  school,  —  having  during  this  time  been  elected 
member  of  the  Academies  of  Florence  and  Carrara,  —  Flaxman 
prepared  to  return  home. 

On  his  arrival  he  found  Bacon,  Nollekens,  and  Banks  fully 
employed.  He  took  a  house  in  Buckingham  Street,  Fitzroy 
Square,  erected  shops  and  studios,  and  made  his  reappearance 
in  England  known  by  his  monument  to  the  Earl  of  Mansfield, 
which  had  been  commissioned  while  he  was  in  Italy.  For  this 
fine  work,  erected  in  Westminster  Abbey,  he  received  £2, 500. 
During  the  progress  of  this  monument  he  wrote  the  poem  and 
made  the  designs  which  he  dedicated  in  a  book  to  his  wife.  He 
was  elected  an  Associate  of  the  Royal  Academy  in  1797,  and  in 
his  forty-fifth  year  full  Academician.  Then  in  succession  came 
the  monuments  to  Sir  William  Jones  for  Oxford ;  his  proposal 
for  a  statue  of  Britannia,  two  hundred  feet  in  height,  to  be 
placed  on  Greenwich  Hill;  the  noble  works,  the  monuments 
in  memory  of  the  family  of  Baring,  embodying  the  words,  "Thy 
will  be  done,"  "Thy  kingdom  come,"  "  Deliver  us  from  evil;  " 
those  to  Mary  Lushing,  Mrs.  Tighe,  Edward  Balme,  and  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Clowes,  of  St.  John's  Church,  Manchester.  Flaxman 
executed  also  several  historical  monuments,  but  these  are  not 
his  ablest  works.  They  were  embodiments  of  paragraphs  from 
military  gazettes,  done  in  marble,  in  which  British  Lions,  Vic- 
torys,  and  Britannias,  the  usual  properties,  extensively  figured. 
Much  of  his  poetic  invention  forsook  him  when  he  approached 


474  OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

modern  subjects.  The  statue  of  Howe,  in  St.  Paul's,  was  so 
clumsy,  that  after  its  erection  months  were  consumed  in  chisel- 
ling it  down.  He  adopted  a  perilous  course  in  working  his 
marbles  from  half-sized  models.  His  physique  may  have  led 
him  to  this.  Latterly,  however,  he  became  sensible  of  the  dis- 
advantages of  such  a  course,  and  modelled  the  group  of  the 
Archangel  overcoming  Satan  of  full  size.  Among  his  statues 
were  those  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  Sir  John  Moore,  and  Pitt. 
But  space  does  not  permit  the  enumeration  of  all  his  works, 
which  may  be  divided  into  four  kinds,  —  the  religious,  the 
poetic,  the  classic,  and  the  historical.  In  each  of  these  he  has  left 
specimens  which  give  him  high  rank,  but  in  all  of  them  he  has 
not  attained  the  same  degree  of  excellence.  In  the  historical 
he  was  embarrassed  with  the  unpoetic  costume  of  those  days  of 
buttons  and  capes ;  in  the  classic  he  was  compelled  to  follow 
the  antique ;  but  in  the  poetic  and  the  religious  he  has  been 
surpassed  in  purity  and  simplicity  by  no  modern  sculptor.  His 
religious  compositions  consist  of  groups  and  figures  embodying 
moral  and  spiritual  passages  from  Scripture  ;  they  are  gener- 
ally of  moderate  dimensions,  carved  in  moderate  relief,  sketches 
in  plaster  and  in  outline.  Of  these  there  cannot  be  less  than  a 
thousand.  It  was  a  wish  that  possessed  him  early  in  life  to 
dedicate  his  genius  to  morality  and  devotion.  That  he  did  not 
accomplish  all  that  he  wished  in  this  direction  was  the  fault  of 
the  age,  not  his.  We  cannot,  however,  dismiss  a  partial  enu- 
meration of  his  work  without  mentioning  his  famous  bas-relief  of 
Mercury  and  Pandora,  and  the  alto-relief  of  the  "  Deliver  us 
from  Evil."  The  original  models  of  many  of  his  fine  works, 
including  the  St.  Michael,  together  with  numerous  drawings, 
are  collected  in  the  hall  of  University  College.  In  1811  he 
delivered  the  first  of  his  course  of  lectures  on  sculpture  at  the 
Royal  Academy. 

Mrs.  Flaxman  died  in  1820,  and  from  this  bereavement  some- 
thing like  a  lethargy  came  over  his  spirit.  He  was  now  in  his 
sixty-sixth  year,  and  surrounded  with  the  applause  of  the  world. 
His  studios  were  filled  with  commissions;  among  these  was 
that  of  the  Archangel  Michael,  already  alluded  to,  and  the 


JOHN   FLAXMAN.  475 

famous  Achilles'  Shield,  designed  for  Messrs.  Rundell  and 
Bridge,  the  eminent  silversmiths. 

The  exhibition  of  mind  in  works  of  art  is,  as  we  have  ad- 
mitted, the  "better  part;  "  but  it  is  only  a  part,  —  the  grander 
and  nobler  part,  but  not  the  whole.  Material  blemishes  may 
be  regarded  with  leniency  in  works  thus  endowed,  but  for  the 
absence  of  intellect  there  is  no  redemption.  It  was  in  that 
intellectual  and  "  better  part "  that  Flaxman  was  pre-eminent, 
and  this  pre-eminence  gained  for  him  the  admiration  of  the 
civilized  world,  and  the  title  of  public  benefactor. 

It  was  on  the  2d  December,  1826,  that  a  stranger  called 
upon  him  to  present  a  copy  of  a  work  entitled  "  Al  Ombra  di 
Flaxman,"  which  its  author  had  no  sooner  published  than  he 
found  to  his  consternation  that  the  great  artist  was  living,  and 
had  now  sent  through  his  envoy  a  copy  and  an  apology.  Flax- 
man smiled  and  accepted  the  volume  with  unaffected  modesty. 
On  that  day  the  great  sculptor  was  well  and  cheerful ;  but  the 
next  Sunday  he  went  to  church,  felt  himself  suddenly  affected 
with  cold,  refused  all  medicine,  and  went  to  bed.  An  inflam- 
mation of  the  lungs  was  the  result  of  the  cold,  and  all  attempts 
to  arrest  the  deadly  malady  were  in  vain.  On  Thursday,  the 
7th  December,  1826,  he  died  without  a  struggle,  and  on  the 
1 5th  of  the  same  month  he  was  buried  with  artistic  honors  in 
the  churchyard  of  St.  Giles  in  the  Fields, — the  Flaxman  whose 
remains  deserved  a  tomb  in  either  Westminster  or  St.  Paul's. 


IV. 


DISCOVERY    AND    EXPLORATION. 


CHRISTOPHER    COLUMBUS. 


CHRISTOPHER   COLUMBUS. 

[BORN  circa  1435.    DIED  1506.] 

TT  has  been  said,  not  without  considerable  show  of  truth,  that 
-*-  the  man  deserving  most  gratitude  from  the  human  race  is 
he  who  shall  have  made  two  blades  of  grass  grow  where  but 
one  grew  before.  Of  course,  the  adage  seeks  to  inculcate  the 
enormous  benefit  conferred  upon  his  species  by  a  judicious 
promoter  of  agricultural  industry;  and  seeing  that  the  cereals, 
the  suppliers  of  the  "  staff  of  life,"  ^are,  after  all,  themselves 
but  grasses,  it  may  be  allowed  that  the  statement  is  not  an 
overstrained  one.  Carry  out  the  proposition  to  its  logical  se- 
quence ;  and  if  the  man  who  increases  the  fertility  of  lands 
already  known  be  worthy  of  praise,  what  may  not  be  said  of 
one  who  gives  to  his  fellow-men  new  and  luxuriant  territories, 
where  labor  may  put  forth  fresh  energies  in  a  new  field,  and  the 
overstocked  populations  of  older  countries  may  find  a  profit- 
able sphere  for  the  employment  of  those  forces  which  at  home 
would  become  useless,  if  not  positively  harmful,  for  want  of  a 
fitting  scope?  So  far  as  the  great  mass  of  mankind  is'  con- 
cerned, it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  any  men  have  more 
greatly  conduced  to  the  temporal  good  of  society  at  large  than 
those  great  explorers  who,  by  their  discoveries  in  past  years, 
have  wellnigh  doubled  the  area  of  the  known  world,  and  knit 
together  lands  already  known  to  their  predecessors,  but  sepa- 
rated by  the  difficulties  of  travel  almost  as  widely  as  though 
they  had  not  existed  for  one  another.  Such  names  arise  to  the 
mind  as  those  of  Sebastian  Cabot ;  Prince  Henry  the  navigator, 
to  whom  the  world  first  owed  its  knowledge  of  the  West  Afri- 
can coast;  Nunez  de  Balboa,  unhappy  discoverer  of  the  South 

481 


482  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Sea ;  Bartolomeo  Diaz,  who  changed  the  terrible  Cape  of  Storms 
into  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and  so  opened  up  Oriental  com- 
merce; but  first  and  readiest  of  all  comes  that  of  the  great 
Genoese,  Christopher  Columbus,  to  whose  undaunted  resolve 
the  world  owes  the  final  possession,  in  any  practical  sense,  of  the 
great  continent  of  North  America,  now  one  of  the  main  grana- 
ries of  the  earth,  so  that,  after  all,  the  praise  awarded  to  him 
may  in  a  sense  be  referred  to  the  saying  with  a  mention  of 
which  we  started. 

Christopher  Columbus,  or  Colon,  —  the  more  generally  ac- 
cepted name  being  only  a  Latinized  form  of  his  patronymic, 
after  a  common  fashion  of  that  day,  —  was  of  humble,  if  not  of 
low  origin,  and  was  born  in  or  about  the  year  1435.  Like 
other  great  men,  divers  towns  have  contended  for  the  honor  of 
having  given  him  birth,  among  which,  perhaps,  the  best  claim 
was  put  forward  by  Cuccaro  in  Montferrat ;  it  is,  however,  now 
pretty  firmly  established  that  Genoa  has  the  true  right.  Simi- 
larly, the  occupation  of  his  father  has  been  under  dispute ; 
whether  he  was  a  weaver,  as  some  say,  or  only  a  bargeman,  as 
others  think,  it  is  certain  that  he  contrived  to  give  the  boy  what 
was,  for  his  station,  an  unusually  liberal  education,  including 
Latin,  geometry,  and  astronomy.  His  seafaring  life,  which 
began  about  his  fourteenth  year,  was  at  first  confined  to  coast- 
ing trips  in  the  Mediterranean  ;  but  as  his  age  increased  his 
voyages  extended  to  the  North  Seas,  where  the  Icelandic  trade 
was  then  in  a  flourishing  condition.  To  this  succeeded  a  more 
adventurous  kind  of  service  under  a  noted  corsair  of  his  own 
family,  who  ravaged  the  neighboring  seas,  making  impartial  war 
alike  upon  Venetians  and  Mahometans.  This  was  brought  to  a 
summary  close  by  the  destruction  of  his  ship,  which  caught  fire 
in  an  engagement;  and  the  young  Columbus  saved  his  own  life 
by  swimming. 

We  next  find  him  settled  in  Lisbon,  where  his  brother  Bar- 
tholomew was  already  living  as  a  maker  of  charts ;  and  shortly 
after  he  was  married  to  the  daughter  of  Palestrello,  one  of  the 
sea-captains  who  had  been  employed  by  Prince  Henry  of  Por- 
tugal, called  "  the  navigator,"  to  whom  reference  has  already 


CHRISTOPHER   COLUMBUS.  483 

been  made,  and  the  results  of  whose  discoveries  now  opened  a 
field  for  the  employment  of  Columbus's  energies  during  several 
following  years,  when  he  was  chiefly  occupied  in  trading  with 
Madeira,  the  Canaries,  and  adjacent  settlements.  Owing  to  his 
matrimonial  connections,  great  opportunities  had  been  afforded 
him  of  studying  such  maps  and  other  records  of  African  dis- 
covery as  had  been  made  in  connection  with  former  Portuguese 
exploration ;  and  the  result,  coupled  with  his  own  observations 
during  his  trading  voyages,  was  a  settled  conviction,  not  only 
of  the  existence  of  hitherto  unknown  lands  in  the  far  West,  but 
of  the  possibility  of  reaching  the  East  Indies,  then  the  great 
end  of  Portuguese  commerce,  by  other  than  the  circuitous 
route  round  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  Having  formulated  his 
ideas,  the  next  step  was  to  find  a  power  able  and  willing  to 
assist  him  in  carrying  them  out.  The  Republic  of  Genoa,  to 
whom,  actuated  by  patriotic  motives,  he  first  proposed  the 
scheme,  declined  it,  influenced  both  by  parsimony  and  a  lack 
of  enterprise.  His  next  application  was  made  to  the  then 
reigning  King  of  Portugal,  Don  John  II.,  who  received  him  gra- 
ciously, and  referred  the  plan  to  a  committee.  The  individuals 
of  whom  this  consisted,  actuated  by  base  motives,  contrived 
surreptitiously  to  fit  out  a  small  expedition,  which  secretly 
started,  furnished  with  copies  of  Columbus's  own  charts,  upon 
the  course  proposed  by  the  navigator  himself,  with  the  in- 
tention of  forestalling  him.  The  attempt,  however,  proved 
abortive,  and  the  vessel  returned  to  Lisbon.  So  incensed  was 
the  great  navigator,  on  hearing  of  this  treachery,  that  he  at  once 
transferred  his  offers  to  the  Court  of  Spain,  whither  he  pro- 
ceeded, despatching  his  brother  at  the  same  time  to  England  to 
make  overtures  to  Henry  VII.  similar  to  those  which  he  him- 
self was  making  to  Ferdinand  and  Isabella.  The  latter  were 
for  some  time  held  in  abeyance,  and  ultimately  rejected,  owing 
chiefly  to  the  engrossing  nature  of  public  affairs,  Spain  being 
embroiled  in  the  war  with  the  Moors ;  consequently  Columbus 
prepared  to  start  for  England,  where  Bartholomew,  after  a 
lengthened  captivity  among  pirates,  had  at  last  received  favor- 
able entertainment.  But  a  new  mediator  interposed  in  the 


484  OUR  GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 

person  of  a  Franciscan  dignitary,  Juan  Perez  de  Marchena,  who, 
taking  up  the  cause  from  feelings  of  friendship  no  less  than 
from  national  pride,  worked  so  hard  for  the  advancement  of  the 
scheme  that  Queen  Isabella  herself  undertook  its  advocacy. 
Partly  owing  to  the  over-caution  of  Ferdinand  and  partly  to  the 
parsimony  of  his  advisers,  rejection  once  more  ensued,  and  the 
project  of  application  to  England  was  resumed.  At  this  critical 
juncture  the  fall  of  Granada  put  an  end  to  Spanish  embarrass- 
ments, and,  some  wealthy  patrons  of  Columbus  having  at  the 
same  time  come  forward  in  his  behalf,  a  treaty  was  finally 
signed  in  April,  1492.  By  this  he  was  appointed  High-Admiral 
of  Spain  in  all  seas  he  might  discover,  as  well  as  Viceroy  in  all 
new  islands  or. continents.  A  tenth  part  of  all  accruing  profits 
was  settled  upon  him  and  his  heirs  in  perpetuity,  and,  in  con- 
sideration of  the  advance  of  one  eighth  of  the  necessary  ex- 
penses of  the  expedition,  he  was  also  to  receive  an  equitable 
share  in  all  commercial  advantages  to  be  gained. 

On  the  3d  of  August,  1492,  Columbus  at  length  set  sail  from 
the  port  of  Palos,  in  Andalusia ;  the  tiny  fleet  which  was  to 
accomplish  so  great  a  revolution  in  the  world's  history  consist- 
ing of  no  more  than  three  caravels,  manned  by  one  hundred  and 
twenty  men.  After  a  run  to  the  Canaries,  where  a  delay  was 
made  for  the  purpose  of  refitting,  he  once  more  started,  steering 
due  west,  on  the  6th  of  September.  Scarcely  had  they  lost  sight 
of  land  when  the  crew  became  uneasy,  both  at  the  novel  variation 
of  the  compass  and  at  the  unaccustomed  aspect  of  the  unknown 
sea  into  which,  driven  by  trade-winds,  they  were  careering. 
For  three  weeks  the  spirit  and  indomitable  cheerfulness  of  their 
commander  kept  them  under  partial  control ;  but  at  the  end  of 
that  time  there  broke  out  an  open  mutiny,  which  it  required 
all  the  diplomacy  of  Columbus  to  quiet  for  a  time ;  indeed, 
threats  were  made  against  his  life  should  he  persist  in  the 
voyage.  Shortly  after  this,  insurrection  made  new  head,  and 
became  so  formidable  that  the  commander  was  forced  in  self- 
defence  to  promise  a  return  home  should  land  not  be  dis- 
covered within  three  days'  time.  It  was  on  the  night  of 
October  1 1  that  Columbus,  gazing  anxiously  towards  the 


CHRISTOPHER   COLUMBUS.  485 

west,  perceived  a  moving  light,  and  almost  immediately  a  cry  of 
"  Land  !  "  was  raised.     A  complete  revulsion  of  feeling  followed 
on  the  part  of  the  crew,  and  their  commander  was  now  hailed 
as  little  short  of  a  divine   leader.     This  first-discovered    land 
proved  to  be  an  island,  one  of  the  present  Bahama  group.     It 
was  taken  formal  possession  of  for  the  crown  of  Castile  and 
Leon,  under  the    name  of  San  Salvador.     Among   other  dis- 
coveries made  during  this  first  voyage  were  the  large  islands  of 
Cuba  and  Hispaniola,  on  the  latter  of  which  —  now  known  as 
San  Domingo  —  Columbus  established  a  garrison,  and,  taking 
with  him  a  few  of  the  natives,  together  with  samples    of  the 
indigenous  produce,  started  for  Spain.     On  the  way  the  little 
fleet,  already  weakened  by  the  loss  of  one  vessel,  was  nearly 
cast  away  in  a  tempest,  but  finally  sought  shelter  at  the  Azores, 
and,  after  touching  at  Lisbon,  reached  the  port  of  departure 
exactly  seven  months  and  eleven  days  from  the  time  when  it 
had  set  out.    The  rejoicings  in  Spain,  as  may  be  imagined,  were 
great.     At  a  court  held  at  Barcelona  all  the  stipulations  origi- 
nally made  by  Columbus  were  ratified,  his  family  was  ennobled, 
and  he  himself  was  appointed   to  the  conduct  of  a  new  expedi- 
tion on  a  vastly  la*rger  scale.     This,  which    left    Cadiz  on  the 
25th    of    September,    1493,    comprised    seventeen    vessels,    on 
board  of  which  were  fifteen  hundred  souls,  numbering  among 
them  certain  men  of  family,  who  proposed  to  push  their  fortunes 
in  the  new  country.     A  more  southerly  course  than  on  the  for- 
mer occasion  led  to  the  discovery  of  the  Leeward  Islands,  then 
inhabited  by  the  fierce  race   of  the  Caribs ;    but  on  reaching 
Hispaniola  it  was  found  that  the  natives,  irritated  by  the  mis- 
conduct  of  the    Spanish    garrison,    had    risen    and    massacred 
them.     Columbus  declined  to  undertake  retaliatory  measures, 
but  established  a  stronger  settlement,   to  which  he  gave  the 
name    of    Isabella,    in    honor  of  his    patroness ;     and,    having 
reduced  matters  to  greater  order,  once  more  departed,  leaving 
his  brother  Diego  as   governor  of  the  island.     The  discovery 
of  Jamaica  followed,  and  on  his  return  the  high-admiral  met 
with  his  brother  Bartholomew,  who  arrived  with  reinforcements 
and  supplies  from  Spain.     The  Indian  war  -which  succeeded 


486  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

resulted  in  an  almost  total  subjugation  of  the  native  tribes, 
many  of  whom  were  reduced  to  servitude,  while  from  all 
heavy  tribute  was  exacted.  During.this  period  the  enemies  of 
Columbus  had  not  been  idle,  and  the  accusations  against  him 
had  become  so  serious  that  he  resolved  to  plead  his  cause  in 
person.  Therefore,  leaving  Bartholomew  as  his  adelantado, 
or  lieutenant-governor,  he  set  out  for  Spain,  where  he  arrived, 
after  severe  hardships,  in  1496.  After  many  delays  he  con- 
trived to  reassert  his  influence  with  the  sovereign,  his  native 
prudence  and  calmness  being  greatly  aided  by  his  presents  of 
gold  and  other  treasure ;  so  that  he  once  more  took  his  depart- 
ure in  high  favor,  in  May,  1498,  with  a  squadron  of  six  ships. 
This  third  journey,  however  important  in  its  results,  was  less 
satisfactory  at  the  time.  Trinidad  was  discovered,  as  well  as 
some  portions  of  the  South  American  coast;  but  mutiny  and 
discontent  at  San  Domingo  occasioned  the  admiral  fresh  anxie- 
ties, and  his  life  was  once  more  imbittered  by  the  intrigues  of 
his  enemies,  who  at  length  contrived  to  influence  even  Isabella 
against  her  former  favorite.  First  of  all,  his  assured  rights 
were  interfered  with  by  a  new  grant  of  exploration  to  his 
rivals,  Alfonso  d'Ojeda  and  Amerigo  Vespucci.  This  was  fol- 
lowed by  a  revocation  of  his  commission  as  viceroy.  Fran- 
cesco de  Bovadilla,  who  was  sent  out  in  his  room,  had  the 
arrogance  to  send  both  Columbus  and  his  brothers  home  in 
irons.  But  the  act  proved  his  own  ruin.  He  was  disgraced, 
while  his  victims  were  liberated  and  rewarded.  Still  the 
former  honors  were  not  restored,  which  so  worked  on  the  feel- 
ings of  Columbus  that  he  ever  after  preserved  his  fetters  as  a 
memento  of  injustice.  It  seemed  as  though  his  star  was  on 
the  wane.  His  last  voyage  began  in  May,  1502;  and  the  first 
incident  was  a  terrible  hurricane,  occurring  soon  after  his  ar- 
rival at  San  Domingo,  in  which  a  treasure  fleet  starting  for 
home,  and  the  departure  of  which  he  had  vainly  attempted  to 
delay,  was  almost  entirely  lost.  True,  his  own  fortune  was 
saved,  while  Bovadilla  and  other  of  his  bitterest  enemies  per- 
ished ;  but  even  this  event  was  made  the  cause  of  charges  of 
sorcery  against  him.  Then  came  his  disappointment  in  not 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  487 

finding  the  strait  which  he  had  hoped  existed  near  Panama, 
and  shipwreck  on  the  island  of  Jamaica,  whence  he  was  only 
rescued,  after  a  period  of  the  greatest  misery,  by  a  fleet  from 
Hispaniola.  At  length,  reaching  Spain  with  one  solitary  vessel, 
he  found,  on  landing  at  San  Lucar  in  December,  1504,  that  Queen 
Isabella  was  dead ;  and  from  her  surviving  consort,  Ferdinand, 
he  could  obtain  no  redress,  and  had  even  to  undergo  the  insult 
of  being  offered  a  pension  in  exchange  for  his  former  dignities. 

So,  broken  down  with  disappointment  and  illness,  Columbus 
breathed  his  last  at  Valladolid,  on  May  20,  1506,  his  death 
being  distinguished  by  the  same  piety  and  calm  faith  which 
had  marked  his  life.  King  Ferdinand,  actuated  possibly  by 
remorse,  honored  his  body  with  solemn  obsequies,  and  con- 
firmed, though  tardily,  the  rights  of  his  family.  His  remains, 
originally  deposited  at  San  Domingo,  were  transported  in  the 
year  1795  to  the  cathedral  of  Havana,  in  the  island  of  Cuba, 
where  they  now  repose. 

"  America,"  says  M.  Henri  Martin,  "  ought  to  bear  no  other 
name  than  that  of  Columbus.  Posterity  has  been  equally 
unjust  towards  Columbus  with  the  crown  of  Spain :  the  latter 
refused  him  the  just  recompense  of  his  labors ;  the  former  has 
denied  him  the  honor  of  naming  the  world  that  he  found. 
The  Florentine,  Amerigo  Vespucci,  has  robbed  the  great 
Genoese  of  his  •  glory  by  the  most  gigantic  fraud  that  history 
records.  Amerigo  having  made,  in  1499,  a  voyage  to  the 
coast  of  the  new  continent,  seen  the  previous  year  by  Colum- 
bus, pretended  to  have  anticipated  Columbus  by  a  year,  whom 
he  had  in  fact  only  followed.  His  letters,  addressed  to  such 
illustrious  personages  as  Lorenzo  di  Medici  and  the  Due  de 
Lorraine,  had  a  vast  publicity ;  that  to  the  Duke  was  printed  at 
St.  Die  in  1 507,  and  the  Lorraine  editor  thereupon  proposed  to 
give  the  name  '  America '  to  the  fourth  part  of  the  globe, 
which  he  believed  Vespucci  had  discovered.  This  proposal, 
made  by  an  unknown  person  in  an  obscure  corner  of  Lor- 
raine, has  been  universally  adopted,  to  the  end  that  nothing 
should  be  wanting  that  might  make  the  unhappy  destiny  of 
Columbus  complete." 


488  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 


WALTER   RALEIGH. 

[BORN  1552.    BEHEADED  OCT.  29,  1618.] 

T  TISTORY,  clothed  as  with  cloth  of  gold  in  the  "spacious 
•*-  •*-  times  of  great  Elizabeth,"  turns  ruefully  to  grope  among 
the  shameful  chronicles  that  make  up  the  reign  of  her  successor. 
Few  meaner  figures  have  disgraced  the  throne  of  England  than 
that  crowned  buffoon.  Even  James  I.,  -however,  has  his  uses. 
The  weakness  and  folly  of  the  effeminate  pedant  serve  to  bring 
into  bolder  relief  the  heroic  qualities  of  the  manlike  queen.  As 
we  read  of  fleets  and  armies  disgraced  abroad  and  despised  at 
home,  we  turn  with  a  prouder  attachment  to  the  days  when  the 
lion-voice  of  Elizabeth  defied  the  whole  might  of  Catholic  Eu- 
rope; when  English  soldiers  triumphed  in  the  Netherlands  and 
English  sailors  humbled  the  pride  of  Spain  on  every  sea ;  when 
Drake  with  a  few  small  vessels  circumnavigated  the  world,  and 
Raleigh  sailed  boldly  forth  to  discover  unknown  lands.  The 
last  great  name  is  imperishably  associated  with  the  glory  of 
Elizabeth  and  the  shame  of  the  mock  Solomon-who  succeeded 
her.  Ever  puzzled  how  to  deal  with  heroes,  James  could  make 
no  better  use  of  the  discoverer  of  Virginia  than  to  murder  him. 

Towards  the  end  of  1616  Walter  Raleigh  had  been  for  twelve 
years  a  prisoner  in  the  Tower.  An  English  Damocles,  his 
living  death  had  compelled  him  to  behold  the  axe  of  the  exe- 
cutioner continually  suspended  above  him  by  that  frail  thread,  a 
king's  caprice.  One  ray  of  sunshine,  in  the  shape  of  his  de- 
voted wife,  alone  lightened  his  captivity  and  brightened  his  lot. 
A  mournful  household  must  it  have  been  at  best.  Great 
was  her  love  who  could  endure  to  look,  morning  after  morn- 
ing, into  the  eyes  of  her  husband,  and  dread  lest  before 
another  sun  rose  the  blow  of  the  headsman  should  have  sealed 
them  forever  to  this  world,  and  her  affection  there.  At  the 


WALTER     RALEIGH. 


WALTER   RALEIGH.  491 

date,  however,  when  our  fancy  transports  itself  to  Raleigh's 
prison,  the  expectation  of  deliverance  had  come,  like  a  guest 
from  heaven,  to  the  hearts  of  its  two  inhabitants.  Money, 
poured  forth  like  water,  had  purchased  the  intercession  of  the 
King's  new  favorite,  the  contemptible  Villiers,  and  a  pardon 
was  already  promised.  His  thirst  for  adventure  reawakened, 
the  veteran  explorer  hoped  in  a  few  months  to  set  sail  with  a 
squadron  for  Guiana,  in  search  of  the  gold-mines  which  he  had 
persuaded  himself  and  the  court  existed  there.  Just  while  he  is 
most  occupied  with  the  project,  a  new  prisoner  enters  the 
Tower;  and  Raleigh,  looking  one  day  from  his  grated  window, 
sees  led  into  the  gloomy  fortress  the  ever-infamous  Carr,  Earl 
of  Somerset,  now  under  sentence  of  death  for  the  poisoning  of 
Sir  Thomas  Overbury.  Sir  Walter  turned  to  those  who  stood 
gazing  with  him  on  the  scene,  and  expressed  the  sentiments  it 
inspired  in  him.  "  The  whole  history  of  the  world  hath  not  the 
like  precedent,"  said  he,  "  but  in  the  case  of  Haman.  and  Mor- 
decai.  A  king's  prisoner  to  purchase  freedom,  and  his  bosom 
favorite  to  have  the  halter !  "  Some  parrot  of  the  Tower,  in  the 
shape  of  an  obsequious  courtier,  hastened  with  the  words  to  the 
King's  ear.  James  listened,  and  smiled  maliciously.  "  Raleigh 
may  die  in  that  deceit,"  said  he.  Before  two  years  were  over 
Carr,  a  wretch  many  crimes  worse  than  Haman,  had  escaped, 
by  favor  of  the  King,  the  gibbet  he  richly  deserved,  and  Raleigh, 
the  English  Mordecai,  had  been  foully  put  to  death. 

Britannia  may  well  turn  with  shame  and  loathing  from  the 
record  of  this  great  man's  fate.  One  of  the  most  gallant  spirits 
of  his  age,  he  had  a  patriotism  that  was  as  sagacious  as  ardent. 
Chiefly  to  Raleigh  do  we  owe  it  that  the  Spanish  Armada  was 
met  while  still  at  sea.  He  urged  that  ships  could  be  moved 
from  point  to  point  more  swiftly  than  soldiers.  The  whole 
land-forces  of  England  would  not,  if  assembled  for  the  defence 
of  her  coasts,  prevent  a  daring  and  skilful  invader  from  landing 
in  whatever  quarter  of  the  realm  he  pleased. to  select.  The 
best  defences  of  the  island  were  its  fleets.  With  the  Channel 
for  an  arena  and  its  havens  to  cover  them,  English  seamen  might 
demolish  piecemeal  the  mightiest  armament  that  even  Spain 


492  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

could  place  upon  the  ocean.  The  wise  counsels  of  the  Devon- 
shire hero  prevailed.  A  goodly  array  of  vessels  was  provided. 
The  elements  fought  on  the  side  of  English  valor ;  and  a  few 
months  later  there  remained  nothing  of  the  Armada  so  haughtily 
misnamed  Invincible,  save  the  triumphant  deliverance  of  the 
realm  it  had  menaced,  and  the  deep  disgrace  that  blackened  the 
renown  of  Spain.  In  the  year  1588  was  laid  the  foundation  of 
England's  naval  supremacy ;  and  Walter  Raleigh  was  among  the 
greatest  of  the  laborers  who  gave  their  souls  to  the  work.  He 
looks  out  on  us  from  the  past,  an  early  example  of  the  spirit  of 
conquest  that  flamed  forth  in  its  crowning  splendor  when,  two 
centuries  later,  the  harbors  of  France  and  Spain  could  hardly 
contain  the  fleets  that  huddled  there  in  inglorious  safety,  and 
the  name  of  Nelson  had  replaced  that  of  Neptune  as  ruler  of 
the  deep. 

The  incidents  of  Raleigh's  life  glide  before  us,  changeful  and 
vivid.  While  still  a  youth,  he  served  his  apprenticeship  to 
arms  in  the  Huguenot  wars  of  France,  and  was  saved,  history 
knows  not  how,  from  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew.  Deeds 
done  in  Ireland  and  the  Low  Countries,  and  a  voyage  in  the 
company  of  his  relative,  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert,  acquired  for 
him  a  celebrity  that  landed  him  in  due  time  at  court.  The 
cloak  said  to  have  served  as  his  introduction  to  Queen  Eliza- 
beth has  been  rendered,  by  historians  and  novelists,  famous  as 
any  garment  tailor  ever  fashioned.  Whether  the  story  of  his 
flinging  it  as  a  foot-cloth  on  the  puddle  that  her  Majesty  hesi- 
tated to  pass  be  false  or  true,  it  is  certain  that  Raleigh's  gallant 
bearing  and  thousand  graces  of  mind  and  person  speedily  won 
him  favor.  Such  a  spirit,  however,  could  not  abandon  itself 
wholly  to  the  butterfly  existence  of  the  courtier.  The  prime  of 
his  life  was  as  useful  as  splendid.  To-day  deep  in  chemical 
experiments  or  Rabbinical  literature,  the  morrow  perhaps  saw 
him  weighing  anchor  for  that  New  World  by  which  he  was  fas- 
cinated as  by  a  magician's  spell.  Discoverer  of  Virginia,  and 
planter  of  our  first  American  colony,  he  labored  with  sagacious 
earnestness  to  render  his  country  the  rival  of  Spain  in  searching 
for  and  civilizing  unknown  lands.  Some  street  of  Richmond, 


CAPTAIN    JAMES    COOK- 


CAPTAIN   JAMES    COOK.  495 

t 

Melbourne,  or  Sydney  would  be  no  inappropriate   site  for  a 
statue  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh. 

Elizabeth  dead,  the  golden  fortunes  of  the  great  admiral 
turned  to  dross.  Wealth,  lands,  the  jewels  that  made  each 
dress  he  wore  worth  a  fortune,  the  places  and  dignities  that  a 
word  from  him  disposed  of,  were  exchanged  for  a  false  charge 
of  treason  and  a  narrow  cell  in  the  Tower.  After  twelve  years 
passed  under  sentence  of  death  came  the  unsuccessful  voyage 
to  Guiana.  On  Raleigh's  return  the  old  condemnation  was 
revived,  and,  a  scaffold  being  prepared  in  Palace  Yard  at  West- 
minster, two  blows  from  the  executioner's  axe  ended,  on  Octo- 
ber 29,  161 8,  the  sorrows  of  this  gallant  spirit.  No  man  ever 
died  with  more  heroic  dignity.  On  the  scaffold  he  asked  for 
the  weapon  that  was  to  sever  the  thread  of  his  life,  and  exam- 
ined its  edge.  "  This  is  a  sharp  medicine,"  said  he  composedly, 
"  but  it  is  a  cure  for  all  diseases."  In  his  Bible  he  had  left 
some  lines,  composed  the  night  before  his  execution.  They 
constitute  the  solemn  farewell  of  a  hero :  — 

"  Even  such  is  Time,  that  takes  on  trust 
Our  youth,  our  joys,  our  all  we  have  ; 
And  pays  us  but  with  age  and  dust, 
Who,  in  the  dark  and  silent  grave, 
When  we  have  wandered  all  our  ways, 
Shuts  up  the  story  of  our  days  ; 
But  from  this  earth,  this  grave,  this  dust, 
The  Lord  shall  raise  me  up,  I  trust." 


CAPTAIN   JAMES    COOK. 

[BORN  OCT.  27,  1728.    KILLED  FEB.  14,  I779-] 

THE  isles  of  Greece  have  been  sung  in  burning  words,  but 
the  poet  is  yet  to  arise  who  shall  do  justice  to  the  isles  of 
the  Pacific.     These  long-hidden  paradises,  the  creation  of  coral 
worms  and  the  submarine  infernos  we  name  volcanoes,  suggest 
32 


496  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

to  Europeans  who  visit  them  thoughts  of  Eden  in  the  days 
that  followed  the  Fall.  Visions  of  tree  and  flower,  resembling 
more  nearly  than  any  other  of  the  scenes  that  make  earth 
beautiful,  the  garden  Adam  sighed  to  leave,  rise  in  tropical 
luxuriance  before  eyes  that  day  after  day  have  been  wearied  by 
the  sight  of  monotonous  leagues  of  water ;  and  delighted  voy- 
agers, as  they  behold  for  the  first  time  Fiji  or  Otaheite,  lying 
lovely  in  the  arms  of  Ocean,  are  prone  to  cry  confidently  that 
man  must  needs  be  innocent  where  all  that  surrounds  him  is  so 
fair.  A  few  days'  experience  of  the  supposed  heaven  on  earth 
and  the  illusion  is  dispelled.  The  native  races  rank  low  even  in 
the  scale  of  heathenism.  Drunkenness  and  those  other  curses 
that  Europeans  take  with  them  to  the  savage  tribes  they  visit  are 
now  rapidly  sweeping  them  away.  When  a  future  Milton  shall 
describe  that  Otaheitan  Eden,  to  regain  which  the  crew  of  the 
"  Bounty  "  rose  in  mutwiy,  he  must  needs  select  Captain  Cook 
or  some  other  white  man  for  his  hero.  In  the  Otaheitan  himself 
the  epic  poet  would  find  nothing  remarkable  except  his  vices. 

James  Cook,  cabin-boy  and  post-captain,  who,  born  in  a  clay- 
built  hovel,  of  parents  that  never  called  a  foot  of  the  land  they 
tilled  their  own,  added  by  right  of  discovery  so  many  square 
leagues  of  territory  to  the  British  Empire,  would  be  no  mean 
subject  to  exercise  the  pen  of  a  modern  Virgil.  The  hero  who 
fled  from  burning  Troy  may  have  rivalled  the  hero  who  fell  at 
Owhyhee  in  hair-breadth  escapes ;  but  so  far  as  extent  of 
travel  and  variety  of  adventure  are  concerned  Cook  asserts  an 
immeasurable  superiority.  Only  in  the  cradle  and  the  grave 
did  he  ever  know  much  of  rest ;  and  even  his  childhood  gave 
promise  of  the  activity  by  which  his  maturer  years  were 
marked.  The  spectacled  dame  who,  with  her  birch  beside  her, 
taught  him  the  alphabet  and  little  beyond,  the  hard-working 
father  and  mother  who  placed  him  in  charge  of  that  dame,  and 
a  few  years  later  apprenticed  him  to  a  haberdasher  as  the  best 
means  by  which  they  could  render  his  social  condition  a  trifle 
superior  to  their  own,  found  him,  so  far  as  we  can  learn,  a 
troublesome  lad  to  deal  with.  When  little  James,  weary  of  the 
counter  and  fretted  into  restlessness  by  the  neighborhood  of 


CAPTAIN  JAMES   COOK.  497 

the  ever-restless  ocean,  insisted  on  being  released  from  the 
haberdashery  business  and  reapprenticed  to  two  Quaker  broth- 
'ers,  the  owners  of  a  few  small  collier  vessels,  Mrs.  Cook,  it  is 
probable,  wept  as  mothers  who  fear  a  watery  grave  for  their 
darlings  are  accustomed  to  weep.  Those  good  peasant  par- 
ents, poor,  ignorant,  and  loving,  who  had  fondly  and  proudly 
hoped  that  their  boy  would  one  day  sell  stockings  and  yards 
of  tape  behind  a  counter  of  his  own,  are  henceforth  unheard 
£>f  in  connection  with  their  famous  son.  Did  they  die  while 
the  ungracious  slowness  with  which  the  world  recognizes  merit 
was  still  deferring  the  hopes  and  making  sick  the  heart  of  the 
future  discoverer?  Did  they  live  to  see  him  a  post-captain 
and  Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society,  and  the  nine  days'  idol  of  the 
London  world?  Biography,  so  far  as  the  writer  has  examined 
it,  is  silent  on  the  subject. 

At  twenty-seven  Cook  had  so  far  risen  in  the  world  as  to  be 
mate  of  a  collier  brig,  and  saw  small  prospect  of  rising  higher. 
While  the  vessel  lay  in  the  Thames  there  broke  out  that  war 
with  France  which  ended  in  the  conquest  of  Canada.  Cook, 
ill  pleased  with  his  condition,  and  conscious  that  it  would  be 
difficult  to  escape  the  clutches  of  the  press-gang,  avoided  a 
forced  enlistment  by  volunteering.  By  ability,  energy,  and 
sobriety  he  attracted  the  notice  of  Captain,  afterwards  Admiral 
Palliser,  who  thought  him  fitted  for  better  things  than  a  life 
before  the  mast.  A  master's  warrant  was  procured,  and  in  the 
Canadian  expedition  that  bore  with  it  the  fortunes  of  Quebec 
and  General  Wolfe  the  eminent  skill  and  daring  of  the  pro- 
moted seaman  were  brought  thoroughly  to  light.  , 

Ten  years  later  the  "  Endeavor,"  a  small  vessel  belonging  to 
the  English  navy,  carried  to  the  South  Seas  a  party  of  astrono- 
mers and  naturalists.  Cook,  whose  talents  had  at  length  won 
some  slender  recognition,  was  charged  with  the  conduct  of  the 
expedition  and  the  care  of  the  men  of  science.  His  difficul- 
ties were  as  great  as  ever  seaman  triumphed  over.  The  un- 
known portions  of  the  Pacific  were  the  deserts  in  which  the 
great  navigator  wandered.  At  sea  his  pathway  was  strewed 
with  hidden  rocks;  if  he  landed,  tribes  of  hostile  savages 


498  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

instantly  beset  him.  At  one  time  disturbing  New  Zealanders 
in  their  cannibal  repast,  at  another  witnessing  the  hills  of  Aus- 
tralia enveloped  in  a  conflagration  his  landing  had  induced  the* 
natives  to  kindle,  Cook  finally  turned  the  prow  of  his  vessel 
homewards,  and  fled,  veritably  chased  by  Death.  The  scurvy 
had  broken  out  on  board ;  and  in  a  few  weeks  the  "  Endeavor" 
was  converted  into  a  floating  hospital,  from  which  corpses  were 
almost  daily  cast  into  the  waves.  His  second  voyage  saw  the 
now  famous  discoverer  profit  by  the  experience  so  terribly 
gained.  To  preserve  the  health  of  his  crew  was  the  task  he 
felt  incumbent  upon  him;  and  by  outstripping  all  the  other 
seamen  of  his  time  in  sanitary  science  he  succeeded  in  his 
desire.  Cook  was  now  in  Antarctic  waters.  English  geogra- 
phers of  a  century  back  fancied  that  a  vast  continent  lay  some- 
where in  the  neighborhood  of  the  South  Pole,  —  a  continent 
that  it  would  be  to  the  glory  of  their  nation  to  discover. 
Charged  with  this  impossible  mission,  James  Cook  struggled 
gallantly  south.  Through  storm  and  darkness,  ice  islands  ever 
around  them,  the  furious  wind  from  time  to  time  _  driving  one 
frozen  monster  against  another,  and  causing  them  to  split  in 
pieces  with  the  noise  as  of  thunder,  he  and  his  one  colleague 
forced  forward  their  vessels,  the  "  Resolution"  and  "  Adventure." 
At  length  the  "Adventure  "  lost  her  consort,  and  retreated  north- 
wards. Cook,  though,  more  than  once  beaten  back  to  more 
hospitable  regions,  would  hear  of  no  final  retreat  till  his  errand 
had  been  fulfilled;  and  the  "  Resolution,"  faithful  to  her  name, 
sought  England  only  when  the  dream  of  a  vast  southern  con- 
tinent had  been  utterly  dispelled.  Land,  said  Cook,  might 
indeed  lie  locked  in  that  Antarctic  darkness,  but  it  was  land  on 
which  the  foot  of  man  would  never  tread. 

A  third  voyage  was  rendered  mournfully  memorable  by  the 
tragedy  of  his  death.  Returning  from  an  attempt  to  pene- 
trate, by  way  of  Behring  Strait,  the  regions  where,  sixty  years 
later,  Sir  John  Franklin  and  his  companions  perished,  Cook 
discovered,  on  November  30,  1778,  the  fatal  island  of  Owhyhee. 
By  February  of  the  following  year  the  dissimulation  of  the 
natives  had  so  effectually  won  upon  him  that  he  trusted  himself 


V.'"    ' 


SIR    JOHN    FRANKLIN. 


SIR  JOHN    FRANKLIN.  5Or 

almost  defenceless  in  their  hands.  His  slaughter  speedily  fol- 
lowed. Assailed  on  the  beach  by  a  crowd  of  treacherous 
savages,  he  was  beaten  down  when  but  a  few  paces  from  his 
boat,  and  not  even  his  remains  ever  reached  England.  If  he 
has  not  a  grave  in  his  native  land,  his  memory  still  lives  there. 
To  few  better  beacons  can  English  seamen  look  than  to  a  man 
whose  career  was  ever  upward  and  onward,  and  whose  devotion 
to  duty  ended  only  with  his  life. 


SIR   JOHN    FRANKLIN. 

[BORN  1786.    DIED  1847.] 

T^ROM  time  to  time  the  doors  of  Arctic  prison-houses  unlock 
before  the  influences  of  an  unusually  genial  season,  and 
there  drift  down  into  warmer  latitudes  grim  relics  of  tragedies 
wrought  amidst  the  ice.  Sometimes  the  battered  fragments  of 
a  wreck  that  ice-floes  have  caught  and  crushed  pass  from  these 
dismal  regions  into  the  open  sea.  Sometimes  an  entire  vessel 
is  loosed  from  its  frozen  anchorage,  and  returns  towards  the 
land  it  quitted  long  years  before,  bearing  with  it,  perhaps,  a 
load  of  corpses,  to  testify  that  its  crew  have  voyaged  onwards 
into  eternity.  No  mildness  of  the  Arctic  summer  dawned  to 
release  the  imprisoned  ships  that  carried  to  their  doom  the 
crews  of  Franklin  and  Crozier.  The  ice,  having  closed  upon 
them,  held  them  fast;  and  the  unhappy  voyagers,  conscious  of 
their  peril,  but  undaunted  by  it,  could  but  turn  away  into  the 
wilderness,  to  mark  each  stage  of  their  journey  with  a  grave,  . 
and  to  find  in  those  dim  and  untrodden  wastes  where  the 
darkness  of  Arctic  winter  is  broken  only  by  the  weird  glitter  of 
the  northern  lights,  that  bourn  whence  no  traveller  returns. 
Only  the  mournful  letters  of  the  dead,  and  yet  more  mournful 
relics  of  their  sufferings  and  fate,  have  from  time  to  time  been 
discovered  and  brought  back,  in  order  to  keep  forever  fresh  in  the 


502  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

hearts  of  all  Christian  people  a  sorrowful  remembrance  of 
heroes  who  died  we  know  not  so  much  as  how  or  where. 

As  brave  a  heart  as  ever  triumphed  over  danger  beat  in  the 
breast  of  Franklin.  When  McClure,  after  wintering  for  three 
years  among  the  ice,  discovering  a  Northwest  Passage,  and 
pushing  forward  his  ship  into  regions  that  no  vessel  had  before 
entered,  was  forced  to  return,  leaving  the  problem  of  the  fate  of 
Franklin  still  unsolved,  Sir  Edward  Parry,  himself  among  the 
most  famous  and  persevering  of  Arctic  navigators,  thus  spoke 
of  his  lost  rival  in  Polar  research:  "Those  who  knew  Franklin 
knew  this,  that  he  would  push  on  year  after  year  so  long  as  his 
provisions  lasted.  Nothing  could  stop  him.  He  was  not 'the 
man  to  look  back  if  he  believed  the  thing  was  still  possible. 
He  may  have  got  beyond  the  reach  of  our  searching-parties." 
The  last  words  were  prophetic,  though  not  in  the  sense  that 
Parry  spoke  them.  Franklin  had  indeed  got  far  beyond  the 
reach  of  any  searching-party  his  country  could  send  forth,  and 
the  mortal  remains  of  a  hero  whose  tomb  would  have  honored 
Westminster  had  long  years  before  been  laid  by  the  companions 
of  his  sufferings  in  an  icy  grave. 

He  was  among  the  most  ardent  of  the  seamen  who  have 
cherished  the  ambition  of  discovering  the  Northwest  Passage, 
or  battling  onwards  to  the  Pole,  and  who,  like  Sir  Martin  Fro- 
bisher,  have  considered  such  achievements  the  only  things  on 
earth  "  left  yet  undone  whereby  a  notable  mind  might  be  made 
famous  and  fortunate."  Twice  by  land  and  as  many  times  by 
sea  did  he  attempt  the  enterprise  in  pursuit  of  which  he  at  last 
laid  down  his  life.  From  his  first  voyage  he  and  his  colleague, 
Captain  Buchan,  returned  with  vessels  that  the  ice  had  crushed 
till  it  seemed  a  miracle  that  they  could  float.  The  second  of 
the  entrances  of  Franklin  into  Arctic  solitudes  was  effected  by 
land.  The  sufferings  of  the  travellers  were  intense.  After  feed- 
ing on  singed  hides  and  lichens  gathered  from  the  rocks,  they 
were  reduced  at  length  to  collect  bones  that  the  wolves  had 
picked  clean  and  make  the  wretched  refuse  into  soup.  A  mor- 
sel of  flesh,  however  putrid,  was  esteemed  a  luxury;  and  when 
by  rare  good  fortune  a  bird  had  been  shot,  the  starving  wander- 


SIR  JOHN    FRANKLIN.  503 

ers  were  but  too  happy  to  eat  it  raw.  Leaving  several  of  the 
party  in  the  wilderness,  slain  by  starvation  and  frost,  the  feeble 
skeletons  that  were  left  succeeded  finally  in  reaching  an  en- 
campment of  friendly  Indians,  and  for  the  first  time  in  months 
were  supplied  with  something  deserving  the  name  of  food. 
Even  their  shoes  and  the  covers  of  their  guns  had  been  de- 
voured in  their  extreme  want. 

The  living  death  he  had  endured  daunted  Franklin  not  a  whit. 
In  1825,  he  and  the  remnant  of  his  fellow-sufferers,  with  one  or 
two  new  companions  in  danger,  once  more  struck  northward 
from  the  Hudson's  Bay  Territory  towards  the  Polar  Sea.  When 
the  expedition  left  England  the  wife  of  Captain  Franklin  lay  at 
the  point  of  death.  The  magnets  of  both  duty  and  inclination 
drew  him  northwards;  affection  conjured  him  to  remain.  Not 
only  did  she  to  whom  the  conflict  in  his  mind  was  owing  refrain 
from  bidding  him  stay,  but  she  entreated  him,  "  as  he  valued 
her  peace  and  his  own  glory,"  to  quit  England  on  the  day 
appointed,  nor  to  delay  an  instant  on  her  account.  She  gave 
him,  as  her  parting  gift,  a  silk  flag,  saying  that  it  was  to  be 
hoisted  only  when  he  reached  the  Polar  Sea.  When  it  was 
reared  on  the  shores  of  Garry  Island,  and  the  cold  winds  of  the 
Arctic  regions  first  shook  it  out  from  the  staff,  a  deeper  coldness 
had  long  since  numbed  the  hands  that  fashioned  it. 

Knighted  in  1829  f°r  his  eminent  services  as  an  explorer, 
Franklin  had  married  again  the  previous  year,  and  was  a  sec- 
ond time  happy  in  his  wedded  life.  In  May,  1845,  he  sailed 
from  Sheerness  on  his  last  and  fatal  voyage.  The  expedition 
consisted  of  two  ships,  the  "  Erebus  "  and  "  Terror."  Men  and 
officers  were  in  high  spirits,  regarding  the  success  of  the  voy- 
age as  all  but  certain,  and  their  commander  as  the  man  of  all 
men  likeliest  to  achieve  it.  The  vessels  passed  northward, 
were  met  by  a  whaler  at  the  entrance  to  the  Arctic  seas,  and 
then  disappeared  forever.  When  two  years  were  gone  by  with- 
out any  tidings  of  Sir  John,  the  Government  began  to  fit  out 
expeditions  in  search  of  the  lost  adventurers.  Some  by  way  of 
the  dangerous  seas  that  lie  between  America  and  Greenland, 
some  by  way  of  Behring  Strait,  parties  of  explorers  toiled  for- 


OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

ward  in  quest  of  their  endangered  countrymen.  The  "  Erebus  " 
and  "  Terror,"  however,  seemed  to  have  vanished  utterly.  When 
McClure,  from  whose  bold  dash  into  unexplored  regions  much 
had  been  expected,  returned  unsuccessful,  hope  began  to  die 
away.  A  year  or  two  afterwards  Dr.  Rae  brought  back  from 
his  overland  search  news  that  made  the  fate  of  the  missing 
Englishmen  too  plain.  He  had  met  Esquimaux  in  whose  pos- 
session were  relics  of  the  expedition.  From  their  narrative  it 
appeared  that  the  ships  had  been  abandoned,  that  many  of  the 
party  were  dead,  and  that  the  survivors,  reduced  to  the  last  hor- 
rible expedient  by  which  hunger  seeks  to  prolong  life,  had  wan- 
dered on  through  the  Arctic  desert,  perishing  one  by  one. 

While  upon  this  subject,  it  would  be  unjust  not  to  mention 
the  efforts  made  by  noble  men  of  other  countries  to  rescue 
the  intrepid  explorer.  They  illustrate  that  wondrous  touch  of 
nature  that  makes  the  whole  world  kin.  In  1849  Henry  Grin- 
nell,  a  noble  and  philanthropic  merchant  of  New  York,  fitted 
out  at  his  own  expense  the  two  vessels,  the  "  Advance  "  and  the 
"  Rescue,"  which  under  the  command  of  Lieutenant  De  Haven, 
U.  S.  N.,  sailed  in  the  following  May  for  the  Arctic  Ocean. 
Upon  the  return  of  this  expedition  from  a  fifteen  months'  un- 
successful search,  a  second  was  immediately  organized  to  con- 
tinue it;  and  Dr.  E.  K.  Kane,  who  had  accompanied  De  Haven 
as  surgeon,  was  selected  for  the  command.  This  expedition 
sailed  in  May,  1853.  It  also  failed  to  recover  any  traces  of  the 
lost  Sir  John ;  but  the  record  of  heroic  endurances  and  of 
the  sufferings  that  Kane's  party  were  forced  to  undergo  while 
imprisoned  in  the  ice  excited  the  world's  admiration  and  sym- 
pathy, useless  though  the  sacrifice  of  the  lives  of  some  and  the 
health  of  others  proved  to  be. 

The  British  Government  had  declined  to  fit  out  further  expedi- 
tions. The  noble  devotion  of  Lady  Franklin,  however,  was  still 
unsatisfied.  Through  her  means  a  small  vessel,  the  "  Fox,"  went 
forth  in  1857  under  the  command  of  McClintock.  The  voyage 
was  destined  to  a  mournful  success.  On  the  northwest  shore 
of  King  William  Land  were  found  the  grave  of  Franklin,  and 
records  showing  that  after  his  death  the  officers  and  men  who 


SIR  JOHN   FRANKLIN.  $O$ 

yet  remained  had  sought  to  gain  the  American  continent  by 
way  of  the  Great  Fish  River.  The  only  shore  they  were  des- 
tined to  reach  was  that  which  lies  beyond  the  last  river  man  can 
pass. 

Franklin,  as  the  documentary  reljcs  of  the  expedition  proved, 
lived  long  enough  to  discover  that  of  which  he  went  in  search. 
He,  first  of  all  men,  lighted  on  a  Northwest  Passage.  It  was 
too  ice-choked  to  be  available,  —  a  barren  discovery,  of  which 
commerce  could  make  no  use.  Not  so  barren  are  the  lessons 
of  his  life,  that  record  of  steady  heroism,  of  privations  unflinch- 
ingly endured,  of  devotion  to  duty,  faithful  even  in  prospect  of 
an  icy  grave. 

The  following  anonymous  poetical  gem  is  deemed  a  fitting 
pendant  to  our  sketch :  — 

" '  Away  !  away  !.'  cried  the  stout  Sir  John, 
'  While  the  blossoms  are  on  the  trees ; 
For  the  summer  is  short,  and  the  time  speeds  on, 

As  we  sail  for  the  Northern  Seas. 
Ho,  gallant  Crozier,  and  brave  Fitzjames  ! 

We  will  startle  the  world,  I  trow, 
When  we  find  a  way  through  the  Northern  seas, 

That  never  was  found  till  now  ! 
For  a  good  stout  ship  is  the  "  Erebus," 

As  ever  unfurled  a  sail ; 
And  the  "  Terror  "  will  match  with  as  brave  a  one 

As  ever  outrode  a  gale.' 

"  So  they  bade  farewell  to  their  happy  homes, 

To  the  hills  and  valleys  green  ; 
With  three  hearty  cheers  for  their  native  isle, 

And  three  for  the  English  Queen. 

"  They  sped  them  away,  beyond  cape  and  bay, 

Where  the  day  and  night  are  one  ; 
Where  the  hissing  light  in  the  heavens  grew  bright, 

And  flamed  like  a  midnight  sun. 
There  was  nought  below,  save  the  fields  of  snow 

That  stretched  to  the  icy  Pole  ; 
And  the  Esquimau,  in  his  strange  canoe, 

Was  the  only  living  soul. 


506  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

"  Along  the  coast,  like  a  giant  host, 

The  glittering  icebergs  formed  ; 
They  met  on  the  main,  like  a  battle  plain, 

And  crashed  with  a  fearful  sound. 
The  seal  and  the  bear,  with  a  curious  stare, 

Looked  down  from  their  frozen  heights  ; 
And  the  stars  in  the  skies,  with  their  great  wild  eyes, 

Peered  out  from  the  Northern  lights. 

"  The  gallant  Crozier,  and  the  brave  Fitzjames, 

And  even  the  stout  Sir  John, 

Felt  a  doubt,  like  a  chill,  through  their  warm  heart  thrill, 
As  they  urged  the  good  ship  on. 

"They  sped  them  away,  beyond  cape  and  bay, 

Where  even  the  tear-drops  freeze  ; 
But  no  way  was  found,  by  strait  or  sound, 

To  sail  through  the  Northern  seas. 
They  sped  them  away,  beyond  cape  and  bay  ; 

They  sought,  but  they  sought  in  vain  ; 
For  no  way  was  found,  through  the  ice  around, 

To  returti  to  their  homes  again  ! 

"  Then  the  wild  waves  rose,  and  the  waters  froze, 

Till  they  closed  like  a  prison  wall  ; 
And  the  icebergs  stood  in  the  sullen  flood 
Like  their  jailers,  grim  and  tall. 

"  O  God !  O  God  !  it  was  hard  to  die 

In  that  prison  house  of  ice  ; 
For  what  was  fame,  or  a  mighty  name, 

When  life  was  the  fearful  price  ! 
The  gallant  Crozier,  and  brave  Fitzjames, 

And  even  the  stout  Sir  John, 
Had  a  secret  dread,  and  their  hopes  all  fled, 

As  the  weeks  and  months  passed  on. 

"Then  the  Ice  King  came,  with  his  eyes  of  flame, 

And  gazed  on  the  fated  crew ; 
With  chilling  breath,  as  cold  as  death, 

He  pierced  their  warm  hearts  through. 
A  heavy  sleep,  that  was  dark  and  deep, 

Came  over  their  weary  eyes  ; 
And  they  dreamed  strange  dreams,  of  the  hills  and  streams, 

And  the  blue  of  their  native  skies. 


DANIEL    BOONE. 


DANIEL   BOONE.  509 

"The  Christmas  chimes  of  the  good  old  times 

Were  heard  in  each  dying  ear  ; 
With  the  dancing  feet,  and  the  voices  sweet, 

Of"  their  wives  and  their  children  dear. 
But  they  faded  away,  away,  away, 

Like  the  sound  on  some  distant  shore ; 
While  deeper  and  deeper  grew  the  sleep, 

Till  they  slept  to  wake  no  more. 

"Oh  !  the  sailor's  wife  and  the  sailor's  child, 

They  will  weep  and  watch  and  pray  ; 
And  the  Lady  Jane,  she  will  weep  in  vain, 

As  the  long  years  pass  away. 
But  the  gallant  Crozier,  and  brave  Fitzjames, 

And  the  good  Sir  John  have  found 
An  open  way  to  a  quiet  bay, 

And  a  Port  where  we  all  are  bound. 

"  Let  the  wild  waves  roar  on  the  frozen  shore 

That  circles  the  icy  Pole  ; 
For  there  is  no  sleep,  no  grave  so  deep, 
That  can  hold  a  human  soul !  " 


DANIEL     BOONE. 

[BORN  1735.    DIED  1820.] 

'T^HIS  greatest  of  American  pioneers,  who  with  his  rifle,  his 
•*-  axe,  and  his  native  strength  of  character  and  purpose, 
reclaimed  so  vast  a  portion  of  the  national  domain  to  civiliza- 
tion, was  a  native  of  Pennsylvania.  When  he  was  only  eighteen 
his  parents  removed  into  North  Carolina,  where  young  Boone 
readily  fell  in  with  the  wild  and  free  life,  half  savage,  half  civi- 
lized, of  a  hunter,  explorer,  and  scout,  —  a  character  and  a 
career  peculiar  to  American  civilization  and  distinguishing  it 
by  a  unique  type. 

All  the  country  west  of  the  Alleghanies  was  then  an  untamed 
wilderness,  the  French  alone  having  a  few  scattered  trading- 


510  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

posts  along  the  course  of  the  Ohio.  Boone's  thoughts,  as 
well  as  his  ambitions,  were  presently  turned  in  this  direction ; 
for  already  the  impulse  to  separate  himself  from  a  crowding 
population  was  too  strong  to  be  resisted.  He  had  married  in 
North  Carolina  Rebecca  Bryan,  who  proved  the  worthy  consort 
of  such  a  husband.  In  1769  he  with  four  companions  set  out 
upon  a  prospecting  tour  into  the  heart  of  this  remote  wilder- 
ness, whose  great  natural  beauty  and  fertility  he  knew  only 
through  report.  He  was  thirty-four  when  he  shouldered  his 
rifle  for  this  long,  difficult,  and  dangerous  march.  His  party 
crossed  the  mountains,  entered  Kentucky  at  the  southeast  cor- 
ner, and  reached  Red  River  in  June.  Here  from  a  rocky 
height  they  looked  down  upon  an  enchanting  scene  of  far- 
stretching  vale  and  noble  stream,  and  here  they  resolved  to 
pitch  their  first  camp.  The  Indians  having  discovered  the 
presence  of  the  white  men,  Boone  and  one  of  his  companions 
named  Stuart  were  surprised  while  they  were  absent  on  a  hunt- 
ing expedition,  whereupon  the  others,  breaking  up  their  camp 
in  haste,  made  their  way  back  to  Carolina.  Boone  and  Stuart 
having  fortunately  eluded  the  vigilance  of  their  captors,  these 
two  intrepid  spirits,  undismayed  by  the  flight  of  their  comrades, 
determined  to  hold  their  ground,  notwithstanding  all  the  dan- 
gers that  surrounded  them.  It  was  now^the  depth  of  winter. 
They  had  invaded  the  hunting-grounds  of  the  fierce  tribes 
inhabiting  the  country  north  of  the  Ohio,  from  whom  no  quar- 
ter could  be  expected,  and  their  ammunition  began  to  fail. 
Stuart  was  soon  killed  and  scalped  by  the  Indians;  but  Boone 
being  unexpectedly  joined  by  his  brother,  who  had  followed 
him  from  Carolina,  these  two  Crusoes  passed  the  winter  in  the 
Kentucky  wilderness  unmolested.  When  spring  came,  Daniel's 
brother  undertook  alone  the  long  and  dangerous  journey  back 
to  the  white  settlements,  while  the  pioneer  himself,  a  stranger 
to  fear,  awaited  his  brother's  return  with  no  other  companions 
than  the  bears  and  panthers  that  prowled  around  his  solitary 
cabin.  At  this  time  Boone  possessed  a  will  of  iron.  To 
hold  what  he  had  come  so  far  to  seek  was  with  him  a  point  of 
honor ;  yet  such  a  resolve  provokes  a  smile  when  we  think  of 


DANIEL   BOONE.  51! 

it.  Its  very  dangers  seem  to  have  charmed  this  bold  spirit. 
To  him  the  woods  were  a  far  more  congenial  dwelling-place 
than  the  haunts  of  men,  the  chase  and  its  dangers  more  allur- 
ing than  all  the  pursuits  of  civilized  life.  To  such  a  man  the 
dark  and  savage  country  he  was  in  was  an  Eden,  and  he  had 
decided  thenceforth  to  make  it  his  home  in  spite  of  the  impla- 
cable hostility  of  its  savage  owners.  It  was'  two  years  before 
Boone  returned  to  his  family,  in  order  to  carry  out  his  cherished 
design  of  bringing  them  to  the  paradise  he  had  found.  In 
1773,  being  joined  by  several  other  families,  he  again  set  out  for 
Kentucky;  but  after  passing  the  mountains  his  party  was  at- 
tacked in  a  mountain  defile,  dispersed,  and  driven  back  by  the 
Indians  with  the  loss  of  six  men.  In  the  combat  Boone's 
eldest  son  had  fallen.  But  Boone  was  not  the  man  to  be 
daunted  by  reverses.  From  this  time  until  1775  he  was  ac- 
tively furthering  plans  for  the  settlement  of  Kentucky.  At 
one  time  he  was  leading  a  party  of  surveyors  as  far  as  the 
falls  of  the  Ohio  (Louisville) ;  at  another  time  he  was  helping 
to  negotiate  a  treaty  with  the  powerful  and  warlike  Cherokees, 
or  again  assisting  to  mark  out  a  road  from  the  Holston  to  the 
Kentucky  River  in  order  to  facilitate  the  passage  of  emigrants. 
So  determined  were  the  Indians  living  north  of  the  Ohio  to 
resist  this  invasion  of  their  hunting-grounds,  that  after  a  bloody 
combat  with  them,  foreseeing  that  the  settlers  must  fight  for 
every  inch  of  ground,  Boone  built  a  block-house  into  which  he 
subsequently  removed  his  family.  This  was  the  first  white 
habitation  in  Kentucky,  and  Boone's  wife  and  daughters  were 
the  first  white  women  who  had  stood  on  the  banks  of  the  Ken- 
tucky River.  This  primitive  block-house  was  erected  on  the 
present  site  of  Boonesborough.  Soon  other  forts  — or  stations, 
as  they  were  called  —  were  built  at  different  points,  convenient 
to  each  other,  maugurating  a  warfare  of  the  most  desperate 
and  sanguinary  nature  with  the  savages,  —  a  warfare  which  gave 
to  the  region  its  significant  title  of  the  "  Dark  and  Bloody 
Ground."  The  settlers  fought  with  determined  obstinacy  and 
valor.  On  both  sides  blood  flowed  like  water.  Repeated  con- 
flicts at  length  taught  these  savages  the  superiority  of  the 
33 


512  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

dreaded  "  Long-Knives."  The  record  of  these  early  days  in 
the  history  of  Kentucky  is  filled  with  deeds  of  daring,  in  which 
Boone  always  bore  a  conspicuous  part.  As  was  natural,  the 
Indians  put  forth  every  effort  to  destroy  so  formidable  an 
adversary ;  but  Boone's  skill,  courage,  and  good  fortune,  his 
knowledge  of  all  the  artifices  of  his  enemies,  always  extricated 
him  from  perils  that  would  have  staggered  any  man  but  him- 
self. Unceasing  vigilance  was  necessary  to  guard  against  sur- 
prise. Sometimes  the  Indians  would  assault  all  the  garrisons 
simultaneously,  and  hold  their  defenders  closely  besieged  for 
weeks  together.  Sometimes  they  would  prowl  unseen  around 
the  stations,  watching  their  opportunity  to  take  prisoners. 
During  one  of  these  affairs  Boone's  daughter  was  taken  and 
carried  off  in  sight  of  the  garrison.  Hastily  collecting  eighteen 
men,  the  father  put  himself  at  their  head.  In  two  days  he 
overtook  the  marauders,  suddenly  fell  upon  them,  put  them  to 
rout,  and  rescued  his  own  child,  together  with  other  prisoners, 
who  had  also  fallen  into  the  hands  of  this  particular  band.  On 
one  occasion  the  wary  backwoodsman  was  himself  taken,  while 
making  salt  at  the  Blue  Licks  for  the  use  of  the  garrison.  His 
captors  first  carried  him  in  triumph  to  Detroit,  and  then  back 
to  their  own  chief  town  of  Chillicothe,  where  they  formally 
adopted  him  into  the  tribe  as  one  of  themselves.  He  was, 
nevertheless,  closely  watched.  While  submitting  to  this  mark 
of  distinction  with  apparent  cheerfulness,  Boone  was  constantly 
meditating  an  escape.  He  saved  a  little  powder,  and  by  split- 
ting in  two  the  bullets  that  were  given  him  to  hunt  with,  but 
always  counted  when  he  returned  from  the  chase,  he  secured 
the  means  of  subsisting  in  the  woods.  And  when,  at  length, 
he  learned  that  the  Indians  were  again  getting  ready  to  invade 
Kentucky,  and  to  strike  his  own  settlement  at  Boonesborough 
first  of  all,  in  more  formidable  force  than  they  had  ever  before 
assembled,  he  fled.  In  four  days  he  reached  the  fort,  having 
travelled  one  hundred  and  sixty  miles  without  taking  rest  or 
tasting  food  but  once  on  the  way.  This  remarkable  exploit 
proved  Boone  to  be  possessed  of  more  than  an  Indian's  forti- 
tude and  powers  of  endurance.  He  announced  their  danger 


DANIEL   BOONE.  513 

to  the  settlers.  The  garrison  was  hurriedly  put  in  the  best 
state  of  defence  possible,  every  man,  woman,  and  child  doing 
his  or  her  utmost  to  this  end.  Early  in  August,  1778,  the 
enemy  appeared  before  the  station,  with  four  hundred  and  fifty 
warriors  led  by  French  officers.  Boone  had  only  fifty  fight- 
ing men.  He  was  summoned  to  surrender.  His  answer  was 
characteristic.  He  would  fight  as  long  as  one  man  was  alive  to 
defend  the  fort.  The  enemy  then  opened  fire.  For  twelve 
days  the  little  garrison  resisted  every  assault.  The  intrepid  Ken- 
tucky women  loaded  the  rifles,  run  bullets,  and  nursed  the 
wounded.  Boone's  daughter  was  wounded  by  her  father's  side. 
At  the  end  of  this  time  the  besiegers  retreated,  with  the  loss  of 
thirty-seven  killed  to  the  garrison's  two.  In  his  account  of  the 
siege  Boone  says,  with  grim  humor:  "We  picked  up  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty-five  pounds  of  bullets,  besides  what  stuck  in  the 
logs  of  our  fort,  which  is  certainly  a  great  proof  of  the  enemy's 
industry."  Boone  took  part  in  the  memorable  battle  with  the 
savages  at  the  Blue  Licks,  where  the  Kentuckians  met  with  the 
most  disastrous  defeat  that  they  had  ever  sustained,  losing  sixty 
of  the  very  flower  of  their  little  army.  Boone's  second  son  was 
among  the  slain,  and  the  pioneer  himself  narrowly  escaped 
death.  Nothing  but  the  heroism  of  a  few  men  like  Boone 
saved  Kentucky  at  this  time.  The  pioneer  afterwards  accom- 
panied General  Clarke  in  his  expedition  into  the  heart  of  the 
enemy's  country,  at  which  time  the  principal  Indian  strong- 
holds in  Ohio,  from  which  the  savage  hordes  had  periodically 
poured  down  into  Kentucky,  were  laid  waste. 

When  at  last  peace  with  Great  Britain  had  brought  this 
sanguinary  struggle  to  a  close,  Boone  led  an  uneventful  life 
until  1794,  when,  in  consequence  of  some  defect  in  his  title,  he 
was  dispossessed  of  all  the  lands  he  had  acquired  in  Kentucky, 
it  might  be  said  by  right  of  conquest.  Cut  to  the  quick  at 
receiving  such  treatment,  Boone  shouldered  his  rifle,  and,  turn- 
ing his  back  upon  Kentucky,  he,  like  another  Belisarius,  took 
his  solitary  way  still  farther  toward  the  setting  sun.  He 
crossed  the  Ohio  and  the  Mississippi,  or  "  Great  Water,"  into 
the  unexplored  region  watered  by  the  Missouri,  Even  here 


514  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Boone's  fame  had  preceded  him.  The  Spanish  governor  of 
the  province  allotted  him  ten  thousand  acres  on  the  Missouri, 
and  created  him  Syndic  of  the  District  of  St.  Charles.  This 
grant  he  also  lost,  upon  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana  by  the 
United  States,  because  of  his  neglect  to  comply  with  the  forms 
requisite  to  complete  his  title.  In  his  old  age  Boone  was  now 
compelled  to  appeal  to  the  justice  of  the  people  of  Kentucky, 
in  order,  as  he  most  pathetically  said,  to  secure  a  resting-place 
wherein  to  lay  his  bones ;  for  he  could  not  now  claim  the  own- 
ership of  a  single  acre.  The  response  to  the  venerable  pioneer's 
appeal  was,  however,  as  prompt  as  it  was  generous.  Boone's 
claims  being  brought  before  Congress  by  the  State  of  Kentucky 
secured  from  that  body  the  confirmation  of  a  thousand  arpents 
of  land  in  the  District  of  St.  Charles,  where  Boone  had  settled 
when  he  first  went  to  the  Missouri  Valley. 

An  eventful  life  was  nearing  its  close.  In  1813  Mrs.  Boone 
died.  For  more  than  half  a  century,  throughout  all  the  extraor- 
dinary vicissitudes  of  her  husband's  career,  she  had  been  the 
faithful  and  heroic  wife  and  mother.  Boone  buried  her  on  a 
bluff  that  overlooks  the  turbid  Missouri.  He  himself  died 
in  1820  in  his  eighty- sixth  year.  His  memory  is  perpetuated 
in  the  names  of  towns  and  counties  throughout  the  section  in 
which  his  active  life  was  passed.  All  honor,  then,  to  the  name 
of  Daniel  Boone !  Though  not  in  any  sense  great,  he  was 
one  of  those  men  who  seem  appointed  by  nature  to  do  a  cer- 
tain work  which  is  great  in  its  results.  As  regards  Kentucky 
he  might  have  used  the  celebrated  saying  of  Louis  XIV.,  "  I 
am  the  State,"  since  the  early  history  of  Kentucky  is  his  own 
biography.  His  log  cabin  was  the  foundation,  not  only  of  that 
Commonwealth,  but,  through  the  subjugation  of  the  Indians,  of 
the  English  settlements  in  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  and  Missouri 
also.  Boone  was  a  pioneer,  not  a  statesman.  His  nature  was 
too  simple  and  upright  for  the  struggles  and  rivalries  of  what  we 
call  "  the  world."  Nevertheless,  there  is  a  moral  grandeur  in  a 
character  like  this,  whose  stern  virtues  stand  forth  undimmed 
by  the  record  of  a  single  base  action.  To  this  character  we 
continue  to  pay  homage. 


DAVID    LIVINGSTONE. 


DAVID   LIVINGSTONE.  $17 


DAVID    LIVINGSTONE. 

[BORN  1815.    DIED  MAY  i,  1873.] 

l^UNERAL  anthems  sometimes  bear  an  exulting  resemblance 
to  songs  of  triumph ;  and  never  was  the  likeness  more 
marked  than  when,  on  April  18,  1874,  Westminster  Abbey 
received  the  dust  of  Livingstone.  The  glory  of  the  dead  hero 
was  pure.  His  scutcheon  could  be  held  up  fearlessly  in  the 
face  of  the  world ;  the  most  malignant  scrutiny  would  fail  to 
discover  a  blot  on  that  stainless  surface.  He  had  fought  no 
battles  but  those  of  religion  and  civilization,  had  spilt  no  blood, 
and  had  dried  tears  in  place  of  causing  them.  His  was  not  one 
of  the  lurid  spirits  that,  laden  with  inward  fire,  lower  on  us  like 
human  thunderclouds,  and  from  time  to  time  startle  the  world 
as  with  lightning  flashes.  The  career  of  Livingstone  shines 
with  a  steady,  splendid  light.  "  Jesus,  my  King,  my  life,  my 
all,"  wrote  the  great  explorer  as,  a  few  days  after  his  parting 
with  Stanley,  he,  on  the  last  birthday  save  one  that  earth  had 
to  offer  him,  renewed  the  vow  of  his  youth :  "  I  again  dedicate 
my  whole  self  to  Thee."  Well  did  his  life  bear  out  the  spirit  of 
the  pledge,  —  so  well  that,  were  there  space  for  generous  emo- 
tions in  the  grave,  the  most  princely  coffin  resting  beneath  the 
pavement  of  the  Abbey  would  have  been  proud  to  welcome 
that  of  the  Scottish  traveller  to  a  place  beside  it 

The  dead  might  be  silent,  but  not  so  the  voice  of  England. 
She  honored  Livingstone  gone  from  her,  as  she  would  have 
welcomed  him  in  life.  Never  again  would  the  strong  Scottish 
face,  resolution  and  sagacity  written  legibly  in  all  its  lines,  show 
on  any  London  street  those  features  burnt  brown  by  the  sun  of 
Africa.  The  keen  eye  had  looked  its  last  on  negro  hut  or  Scot- 
tish homestead.  But  the  fame  of  the  traveller  remained,  and 
the  works  of  the  missionary  lived  after  him.  He  had  cast  the 
light  of  Christianity  on  the  darkest  places  of  the  earth. 


5l8  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

The  almost  feminine  tenderness  inseparable  from  all  courage 
that  truly  deserves  the  epithet  "  lion-like  "  was  peculiarly  marked 
in  Livingstone.  That  tenderness  never  found  vent  in  misplaced 
sentimentality  or  effusive  pathos.  The  feeling  was  too  strong 
for  it  to  lead  the  hero  whom  it  influenced  into  any  weakness. 
David  Livingstone,  believing  in  hearty  effort,  disdained  ineffec- 
tive words.  His  great  heart  might  be  set  on  fire  by  the  wrongs 
of  Africa ;  but  he  was  not  one  to  wring  his  hands  helplessly  in 
prospect  of  those  wrongs,  or,  seizing  on  pen  and  ink,  to  wail 
forth  page  after  page  of  useless  lamentation.  It  did  not  con- 
tent him  to  drop  tears  on  the  fetters  of  the  negro ;  his  desire 
was  to  break  them.  Noble  actions,  not  splendid  sentiments, 
were  the  contributions  he  made  to  progress.  By  tireless  self- 
sacrifice,  by  a  justice  that  mercy  effectually  tempered,  by  a 
patience  whose  very  calmness  bespoke  its  depth,  and  a  perse- 
verance none  the  less  strong  that  it  was  gentle,  did  the  famous 
explorer  prove  how  truly  in  his  nature  the  lion  had  lain  down 
with  the  lamb.  "  I  like  you,"  was  Cazembe's  greeting  to  the 
Doctor,  when  the  savage  potentate  in  question  had  scanned  for 
a  moment  the  features  of  the  white  visitor  to  his  dominions.  "  I 
like  you,"  few  women  and  children  can  have  failed  to  think  that 
ever  looked  on  the  face  of  David  Livingstone. 

How  well  we  all  seem  to  know  him !  How  beloved  is  his 
memory  in  his  native  Scotland,  that  country  whose  pride  in  her 
great  sons  is  surely  equalled  by  no  other  nation  on-earth !  A 
wanderer,  both  from  disposition  and  circumstances,  the  Scot 
yet  seems,  when  he  sets  out  on  his  wanderings,  to  leave  his  heart 
in  the  land  of  his  nativity.  Is  there  in  any  autobiography  ever 
written  a  passage  more  affecting  than  that  which  occurs  in  Liv- 
ingstone's diary  of  June  25,  1868?  The  explorer  had  not  seen 
an  English  face  for  years.  He  was  worn  with  illness  and  pri- 
vation, sick  at  heart  from  witnessing  the  sufferings  of  slaves, 
deprived  of  everything  but  his  courage  and  his  faith  in  God. 
All  at  once  Death  thrusts  on  him  a  token  of  his  presence,  and 
stirs  up  a  thought  that  breaks  like  a  sob  from  that  noble  heart. 
"We  came,"  he  writes,  "  to  a  grave  in  the  forest.  It  was  a  little 
rounded  mound,  as  if  the  occupant  sat  in  it  in  the  usual  native 


DAVID  LIVINGSTONE.  519 

way.  .  .  .  This  is  the  sort  of  grave  I  should  prefer ;  to  lie  in  the 
still,  still  forest,  and  no  hand  ever  disturb  my  bones.  The 
graves  at  home  always  seemed  to  me  miserable,  especially 
those  in  -the  cold,  damp  clay.  .  .  .  But  I  have  nothing  to  do  but 
wait  till  He  who  is  over  all  decides  where  I  have  to  lay  me 
down  and  die.  Poor  Mary  lies  on  Shupanga  brae,'  and  '  beeks 
foment  the  sun.'  "  In  that  kindly  Lowland  dialect,  the  dearer  for 
its  very  ruggedness  to  the  rugged  Scottish  heart,  the  simplest, 
tenderest  tongue  that  ever  told  of  love  and  sorrow,  does  the 
indomitable,  worn  man,  gray  now  with  a  thousand  labors  and 
sorrows,  write  down  his  thought  of  his  dead  wife.  "  On  Shu- 
panga brae."  So  dear  is  everything  connected  with  Scotland 
to  this  son  a  hemisphere  distant  from  her,  that  the  "  brae," 
with  its  memories  of  yellow  gorse  and  rivers  like  Tweed  and 
Yarrow,  becomes  a  term  to  express  the  African  wilderness 
where4  under  the  shade  of  a  banyan-tree,  was  dug  the  grave  of 
that  beloved  helpmeet.  What  tears  must  have  blistered  his 
eyes  as  he  wrote  of  her !  How  vividly  must  her  lost  face  have 
been  present  to  his  memory  as  he  stood  by  that  grave  of  the 
unknown  negro  in  the  "  still  forest "  !  He  had  loved  her  so 
truly.  The  only  time  grief  ever  broke  the  great  traveller  down 
was  when  she  died. 

At  Ilala,  five  years  later,  Livingstone  lay  down  in  a  hastily 
built  hut,  knowing  that  it  was  to  die.  Did  the  deep  murmur  of 
the  neighboring  forest  recall  to  the  suffering  missionary  in 
those  last  hours  of  agony  sounds  long  unheard,  but  familiar 
to  his  boyhood,  —  the  rushing  of  Clyde  to  the  sea,  the  hum 
and  whir  of  the  factory  where,  at  ten  years  of  age,  his  early 
ardor  for  study  led  him  to  place  an  open  book  on  some  part 
of  the  machinery  before  him,  that  he  might  read  even  as  he 
worked?  He  was  dying  now;  and  not  on  the  banks  of  the 
Clyde,  nor  even  near  the  Nile,  —  that  more  famous  river  on 
whose  exploration  his  heart  had  so  long  been  set,  — but  amidst 
jungle  and  noisome  swamp,  where  scarcely  so  much  as  a  drop  of 
pure  water  could  be  obtained  to  wet  his  fevered  lips.  And  pres- 
ently there  came  a  second  and  invisible  guest  to  the  thatched 
hut  in  the  shadow  of  the  trees.  In  the  early  morning  of  May  I, 


520  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

1873,  the  faithful  native  servants  of  the  explorer  entered  the 
rude  structure  where,  as  they  supposed,  he  was  lying  sick. 
They  saw  their  master  kneeling  in  an  attitude  of  prayer  by  his 
bedside,"  and  instinctively  drew  back.  Livingstone  did  not 
move.  Presently  one  of  them  advanced  softly  to  him,  and 
touched  his  cheek.  It  had  a  deathly  coldness;  the  flush  of 
the  fever  burned  there  no  longer.  The  hero  was  dead. 

And  so  he  died  praying !  Wrestling  with  God  for  Africa ; 
beseeching  that  in  the  harvest-field  where  he  had  so  earnestly 
labored  other  workers  might  not  lack.  There  has  been  given 
him,  —  as  the  sole  token  by  which,  when  his  remains  reached  her, 
Britain  could  show  that  this  was  a  man  whom  she  delighted  to 
honor,  —  a  grave  in  Westminster  Abbey.  It  was  not  the  sepul- 
chre he  coveted.  His  body  will  rest  there,  however,  as  peace- 
fully as  though  the  African  forest  shrouded  his  grave  in  leafy 
gloom ;  and  his  name  and  his  example  will  be  forever  bright 
in  our  remembrance.  This  was  a  man  who  gave  so  much  fear 
to  God  that  he  had  none  left  for  earthly  dangers.  Not  when 
snatched  as  by  a  miracle  from  the  jaws  of  the  lion  whose  spring 
had  borne  him  to  the  ground  with  a  shattered  arm,  not  when, 
sick  and  almost  starving,  he  tottered  into  Ujiji,  to  be  found 
there  by  the  gallant  Stanley  and  relieved  from  his  pressing 
wants,  did  the  indomitable  spirit  for  a  moment  blench.  Strong 
in  his  courage,  inflexible  in  his  Sense  of  duty,  lofty  and  earnest 
in  his  -aims,  the  character  of  Livingstone  shines  on  us  with  an 
almost  ideal  light.  He  gave  his  life  to  silence,  so  far  as  might 
be  in  the  power  of  a  single  man,  —  the  awful  Miserere  that  from 
the  interior  of  the  dark  continent  goes  up  ceaselessly  to 
heaven.  Africa  is  the  legacy  he  has  left  us ;  the  single  homage 
his  memory  demands  is  that  we  shall  render  the  negro  civilized 
and  free. 

It  would  require  a  long  chapter  to  do  more  than  indicate  in 
the  most  general  terms  what  were  the  services  that  Livingstone 
rendered  to  his  country,  to  the  cause  of  religion  and  humanity, 
and  to  the  extension  of  geographical  knowledge.  An  entire 
reconstruction  of  the  map  of  Africa  was  the  result.  Born  at 
an  obscure  village  of  Lanarkshire,  Scotland,  and  of  humble 


DAVID  LIVINGSTONE.  521 

parentage,  the  future  explorer  first  went  to  work  in  a  cotton 
mill.  At  twenty-three  he  had,  by  the  most  strenuous  exertions, 
laid  by  enough  to  undertake  a  college  course.  In  1838  he 
went  up  to  London,  presented  himself,  and  was  accepted  by 
the  Missionary  Society  as  a  candidate.  For  two  years  longer 
he  applied  himself  to  the  study  of  theology  and  to  taking  his 
medical  degree.  At  the  end  of  these  two  years,  namely,  in 
1840,  Livingstone  sailed  for  Africa,  the  future  scene  of  his 
labors. 

Livingstone's  first  endeavor  was  to  make  himself  acquainted 
with  the  country  by  pushing  out  into  it  in  various  directions. 
Already,  no  doubt,  were  his  clear  eyes  fixed  upon  the  vast 
extent  of  unknown  territory  represented  on  the  map  of  Africa 
by  a  blank,  and  inhabited  by  an  unknown  people.  A  two  years' 
examination  of  the  ground  satisfied  Livingstone  that  the 
proper  work  for  white  missionaries  was  that  of  opening  up  new 
territory  and  of  pushing  forward  new  stations,  leaving  the 
native  missionaries  to  work  the  field  in  detail.  The  whole  of 
his  subsequent  career  was  a  development  of  this  idea.  Living- 
stone was  absent  sixteen  years,  during  which  time  he.  had  pene- 
trated first  to  Lake  Ngami,  which  had  never  before  been  seen 
by  a  white  man,  and  subsequently  to  the  great  falls  of  the 
Zambesi.  A  second  journey  of  exploration,  known  as  the 
Zambesi  Expedition,  and  fitted  out  under  the  patronage  of 
the  Government,  Livingstone  being  named  its  commander,  dis- 
covered and  explored  Lake  Nyassa  on  the  east  coast;  but  from 
various  causes  the  expedition  failed  to  accomplish  as  much  as 
Livingstone  had  hoped  for.  Livingstone's  last  expedition,  in 
1866,  was  a  determined  effort  to  penetrate  to  the  farthest 
sources  of  the  Nile,  the  "  fountains  of  Herodotus."  How  he 
persevered  in  the  face  of  determined  opposition  from  the 
slave-dealers,  of  sickness  which  reduced  his  iron  frame  to  a 
"ruckle  o'  bones,"  of  hardship  to  which  other  experiences 
seemed  mere  holiday  excursions,  are  things  freshly  remem- 
bered. All  tidings  of  him  having  been  lost,  the  explorer  was 
believed  to  have  perished  among  the  African  jungles;  but  he 
was  at  length  found  by  the  rescuing  party  of  Stanley  at  Ujiji 


522  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

in  a  deplorable  condition.  The  arrival  of  the  intrepid  Ameri- 
can explorer  on  the  scene  was  the  one  bright  episode  of  this 
brave  but  futile  attempt  to  carry  the  light  of 'civilization  into 
the  very  heart  of  equatorial  Africa.  After  the  departure  of 
Stanley,  Livingstone  once  more  set  about  the  work  to  which  he 
had  dedicated  his  life.  His  life  was  to  be  the  forfeit. 


V. 
SCIENCE    AND    INVENTION, 


THE  BLOOD 


GULIELMUS  HARY^US 


I  V-I  LJ  !_/ 1.  !__<  I— <  1  T  L  V_/   k—-'          i    Jj[     VI.   \   *.  1    J__<  V-<  k—'  ^«  1* 

ANGLUS  NATUs,GALLi>t, !TALI/E,GEF\MANI>E  HOSPES,  1657 

UBIQUEAMOR,  ET    LDESIDER.IUM, 

QUEM  OMNIS  TEF^F^A   EXPETISSET  ClVEM. 


PR     WILLIAM    HARVEY. 


DR.   WILLIAM    HARVEY. 

[BORN  1578.    DIED  1657.] 

r  I  ^HE  life  of  William  Harvey  is  full  of  interest  to  every 
-*•  student  of  anatomy,  physiology,  and  medicine.  It  closely 
concerns  us  all ;  for  before  his  time  little  was  known  of  the 
human  frame,  and  his  discoveries  have  a  practical  bearing  on 
the  treatment  of  even  the  simplest  complaint.  Born  at  Folke- 
stone in  1578,  Harvey  had  the  inestimable  advantage  of  good 
scholastic  training.  From  the  grammar-school  at  Canterbury  he 
went  to  Caius  College,  Cambridge,  in  1593,  and,  after  studying 
logic  and  natural  philosophy  there  six  years,  he  subsequently 
resided  in  Padua,  then  a  celebrated  school  of  medicine,  and  at- 
tended lectures  on  anatomy,  pharmacy,  and  surgery,  delivered 
respectively  by  Fabricius  al  Aquapendente,  Minadons,  and  Cas- 
serius.  The  common  language  of  learned  men  at  that  time 
was  Latin,  in  which  Harvey  himself  composed  his  works.  He 
wrote  it,  indeed,  correctly  and  with  elegance.  In  Padua  he  was 
admitted  to  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Medicine,  and  at  the  age 
of  twenty-four  he  returned  to  England.  It  was  in  August,  1615, 
that  he  was  chosen  by  the  College  of  Physicians  to  deliver  his 
Lumleian  lectures  on  anatomy  and  surgery;  and  he  is  supposed 
to  have  taken  the  earliest  opportunity  of  bringing  forward  his 
views  on  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  which  he  afterwards  de- 
veloped more  fully  and  published  in  1628.  The  fact  is  that 
while  studying  at  Padua  a  new  world  of  observation  had  opened 
itself  to  Harvey's  inquiring  mind.  His  master,  Fabricius,  had 
called  his  attention  to  certain  curious  valves  inside  the  veins, 
made  by  the  folds  of  their  lining.  Why  did  they  lie  open  when 
the  blood  was  flowing  towards  the  heart,  and  close  up  and  bar 
34  527 


528  OUR  GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 

the  way  the  moment  it  was  not  flowing  in  that  direction?  Fa- 
bricius  said  it  was  only  to  prevent  the  blood  rushing  too  fast  into 
the  branches  of  the  veins;  but  Harvey  was  not  satisfied  with 
this  reason.  By  experiments  which  he  made  he  found  that  the 
arteries  carried  blood  from  the  heart,  and  the  veins  brought  it 
back  again ;  hence  the  throbbing  of  the  arteries  charged  with 
blood  pumped  fresh  out  of  the  heart  and  sent  through  the  body. 

But  this  was  far  from  being  the  whole  of  Harvey's  discovery 
of  the  circulation  of  the  blood.  It  was  but  half  of  it.  After 
the  blood  has  gone  its  first  round,  —  the  blood  in  the  lower 
artery  being  returned  to  the  heart  by  the  lower  vein,  and  the 
blood  in  the  upper  artery  by  the  upper  vein,  —  it  starts  upon  a 
new  circuit.  Descending  through  some  valves  from  the  upper 
chamber,  or  auricle,  of  the  heart  to  the  lower,  it  takes  its  flow 
through  the  lungs  and  comes  back  by  the  pulmonary  or  lung- 
vein  into  the  upper  heart-chamber,  from  which  the  entire  round 
begins  afresh.  The  first  journey  is  called  the  general  circula- 
tion, and  the  second  the  pulmonary  circulation,  in  which  the 
change  that  the  blood  undergoes  is  of  the  most  important  kind. 
The  blood  which  is  carried  becomes  exposed  to  the  action  of 
the  air  by  means  of  the  capillary  vessels;  it  loses  carbonic-acid 
gas,  which  is  poisonous,  and  absorbs  oxygen,  which  is  life- 
giving.  This  fact,  it  is  true,  was  not  known  to  Harvey ;  but  he 
prepared  the  way  for  its  discovery  by  the  substantial  proofs  he 
exhibited  of  the  double  circulation. 

Harvey,  however,  was  not  hasty  in  arriving  at  his  conclusions. 
It  was  nineteen  years  before  he  traced  the  blood  through  all  the 
channels  of  the  body,  and  he  felt  quite  certain  that  he  had 
grasped  truth  without  admixture  of  error.  Yet  he  experienced 
the  fate  of  all  who  are  in  advance  of  their  fellows.  The  older 
physicians  would  not 'believe  that  he  was  in  possession  of  truths 
which  they  had  never  taught  or  learnt ;  and  Harvey  told  a  friend 
he  had  lost  many  patients  through  his  new  discovery.  But  the 
unfortunate  sovereign,  Charles  I.,  whose  physician  Harvey  was, 
cannot  be  numbered  among  those  prejudiced  persons  who  op- 
posed him.  The  King,  on  the  contrary,  allowed  him  many 
opportunities  of  making  physiological  experiments  by  the  help 


DR.   WILLIAM    HARVEY.  529 

of  deer  in  the  royal  parks,  took  great  interest  in  his  scientific 
researches,  and  made  him,  for  a  time,  head  of  Merton  College, 
Oxford.  But  he  was  of  a  retiring  disposition,  and  so  averse  to 
controversy  that  he  could  hardly  be  persuaded  to  publish  his 
later  investigations  when  he  had  become  aware  of  the  disputes 
and  ill-will  occasioned  by  his  discovery  of  the  circulation  of  the 
blood. 

With  the  exception  of  Gilbert's  discovery  of  terrestrial  mag- 
netism at  the  close  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  Harvey's  was  the  only 
one  of  any  real  value  proceeding  from  English  research  before 
the  Restoration.  But  he  did  not  fail  to  make  his  mark  during 
his  lifetime ;  and  having  spoken  of  him  in  connection  with  Mer- 
ton College,  Oxford,  we  may  add  that  a  knot  of  scientific  men 
used  to  meet  in  that  university  about  the  year  1648,  among 
whom  the  discoveries  of  Harvey  used  to  form  frequently  the 
subject  of  conversation.  They  were  Dr.  Wallis,  Dr.  Wilkins 
the  warden  of  Wadham,  Dr.  Ward  the  eminent  mathema- 
tician, and  the  first  of  English  economists  Sir  William  Petty. 
"  Our  business,"  Wallis  says,  "  was  (precluding  matters  of  theol- 
ogy and  State  affairs)  to  discourse  and  consider  of  philosophical 
inquiries  and  such  as  related  thereunto,  as  Physick,  Anatomy, 
Geometry,  Astronomy,  Navigation,  Statics,  Magneticks,  Chy- 
micks,  Mechanicks,  and  Natural  Experiments;  with  the  state 
of  these  studies  as  then  cultivated  at  home  and  abroad.  We 
then  discoursed  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  the  valves  in 
the  vena  lactece,  the  lymphatic  vessels,  the  Copernican  hypothe- 
sis, the  nature  of  comets  and  new  stars,  the  satellites  of  Jupiter, 
the  oval  shape  of  Saturn,  the  spots  on  the  sun  and  its  turning 
on  its  own  axis,  the  inequalities  and  selenography  of  the  moon, 
the  several  phases  of  Venus  and  Mercury,  the  improvement  of 
telescopes,  the  grinding  of  glasses  for  that  purpose,  the  weight 
of  air,  the  possibility  or  impossibility  of  vacuities  and  nature's 
abhorrence  thereof,  the  Torricellian  experiment  in  quicksilver, 
the  descent  of  heavy  bodies  and  the  degree  of  acceleration 
therein,  and  divers  other  things  of  like  nature." 

Harvey's  inquiries  into  the  subject  of  incubation,  carried  on, 
as  they  were,  by  means  of  a  long  and  patient  series  of  experi- 


530  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

ments,  were  of  considerable  value,  though  not  to  be  compared 
in  importance  with  those  relating  to  the  heart  and  lungs.  It 
was  this  last  which  gave  him  his  name  among  posterity,  and 
which,  by  its  novelty  and  boldness,  aroused  so  lively  an  opposi- 
tion among  his  contemporaries.  It  is  not  surprising  that  he 
should  speak  of  the  things  he  had  put  forward  as  "  so  new  and 
unheard  of  that  I  not  only  fear  evil  to  myself  from  the  ill-will 
of  some,  but  I  am  afraid  of  having  all  men  for  my  enemies,  so 
much  are  persons  influenced  and  led  by  habit,  by  doctrine  once 
imbibed  and  rooted^  in  them  deeply  like  a  second  nature,  and 
by  a  reverential  regard  for  antiquity."  Hence  he  was  violently 
opposed  by  Primerosius,  Parisanus,  Pliolanus,  and  others.  The 
last  of  these  was  the  only  adversary  to  whom  he  replied.  Not 
a  single  physician  over  forty  years  of  age  admitted  his  dis- 
covery; but  Plempius,  a  Professor  of  Louvain,  one  of  his  early 
opponents,  declared  himself  a  convert,  and,  through  his  exam- 
ple, many  more  laid  down  their  arms.  Dr.  George  Ent,  a  Fellow 
of  the  College  of  Physicians,  supported  him,  and  replied  to 
Parisanus. 

It  was  in  1623  that  Harvey  was  appointed  physician  extraor- 
dinary to  James  I. ;  and  when  he  afterwards  became  physician 
to  his  son,  Charles  L,  he  was  in  the  habit  of  exhibiting  to  his 
Majesty  and  to  the  most  observant  persons  of  his  Court  the 
motions  of  the  heart  and  other  phenomena  on  which  his  teach- 
ing was  founded.  During  the  civil  war  he  moved  about  with 
the  King  from  place  to  place;  and  it  was  while  staying  for  a 
short  time  in  Oxford  that  the  King  made  him  master  of  Merton, 
and,  by  an  admission  ad  eundem,  he  received  the  degree  of 
Doctor  of  Medicine.  The  mastership,  however,  was  a  very 
transient  honor.  In  a  few  months  the  Puritan  party  regained 
the  ascendancy  and  replaced  Brent,  whom  the  King  had  dis- 
placed. Soon  after  he  suffered  still  more  from  the  violent  par- 
tisanship of  the  time.  His  house  was  burned  and  plundered, 
several  unpublished  works  of  his  being  unfortunately  destroyed. 
This  must  have  been  a  severe  trial,  and  similar  in  its  character 
to  a  distressing  loss  experienced  by  Sir  Isaac  Newton  at  a  later 
period.  The  latter  years  of  his  life  were  spent  at  his  country 


LINNAEUS. 


LINN^US.  533 

house  at  Lambeth,  or  with  his  brother,  not  far  from  Richmond. 
In  1654  he  was  elected  President  of  the  College  of  Physicians, 
but  declined  the  office  in  consequence  of  his  age  and  infirmi- 
ties. He  presented,  however,  his  library  to  the  College,  and 
also  during  his  lifetime  a  farm  which  he  had  inherited  from  his 
father.  He  died  at  the  venerable  age  of  eighty  in  1657;  and  a 
monument  to  his  memory  may  be  seen  at  Hampstead,  in  Essex, 
where  he  was  buried.  In  1766  the  College  of  Physicians  pub- 
lished his  works  in  Latin,  in  a  quarto  volume ;  and  two  manu- 
script works  of  his  are  preserved  in  the  library  of  the  British 
Museum.  An  admirable  life  of  him  has  recently  been  published. 


LINN^US. 

[BORN  1707.    DIED  1778.] 

Tx^ARL  LINNE,  or,  as  he  is  usually  called,  Linnaeus,  was 
'•V  born  on  the  23d  of  May,  1707,  at  Rashalt,  in  Sweden. 
His  father  belonged  to  a  race  of  peasants,  but,  having  by  his 
personal  efforts  raised  himself  to  the  position  of  pastor  of  the 
village  or  hamlet  in  which  he  lived,  he  followed  an  old  Swedish 
custom  common  in  such  cases  of  adopting  a  surname,  and 
called  himself  Nils  Linne.  Nils  is  the  familiar  Swedish  for 
Nicholas,  and  Linne  the  name  of  the  linden-tree.  According 
to  immemorial  usage  among  the  peasantry,  the  son  of  Nils 
would  be  Nilsson,  and  if  he  were  Olaf,  he  would  be  called  Olaf 
Nilsson,  and  so  on.  But  with  Nils  the  clergyman  it  was  a  dif- 
ferent matter.  A  favorite  linden-tree  in  the  village  furnished 
the  required  surname,  and  henceforth  himself  and  his  chil- 
dren became  Lindens.  For  a  similar  reason 'the  good  pastor's 
brother-in-law  became  Tiliander,  or  Lindenman.  The  choice 
was  not  made  at  random.  Both  Nicholas  and  his  wife's 
brother  were  men  of  taste  and  culture,  and  both  were  tolerably 
proficient  botanists.  It  so  happened  that  the  village  manse  was 


534  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

situated  on  the  banks  of  a  lovely  lake  in  the  midst  of  picturesque 
scenery.  The  clergyman  cultivated  fields  and  gardens,  and 
probably  found  equal  profit  and  pleasure  in  the  occupation. 

Thus  it  was  that  the  children  grew  up  in  the  midst  of  every- 
thing that  could  awaken  in  them  the  love  of  nature  or  allure 
them  towards  its  study.  Such  surroundings  naturally  fostered 
young  Karl's  fondness  for  plants  or  flowers,  and,  by  displacing 
all  other  boyish  tastes  and  ordinary  studies,  entirely  upset  the 
cherished  parental  design  of  making  him  a  clergyman.  The 
result,  however,  while  it  certainly  disappointed,  did  not  alto- 
gether displease,  the  elder  Linne.  He  could  not  ignore  his  own 
tastes,  nor  the  many  fascinations  to  which  the  very  homestead 
rendered  the  boy  susceptible.  Wisely  judging  remonstrance 
useless,  he  resolved  to  give  him  a  fair  opportunity  for  the 
cultivation  of  his  special  gifts.  A  corner  of  the  spacious  gar- 
den was  marked  off  and  assigned  to  Karl's  separate  use.  He 
was  to  do  with  it  as  he  pleased.  And  in  a  very  short  time  he 
so  crowded  it  with  specimens  gathered  from  wood  and  field 
that  the  indulgent  gardener  employed  by  his  father  could  not 
possibly  stand  the  invasion  which  threatened  the  rest  of  the 
property.  Weeds  of  no  possible  economic,  or  so  far  as  any 
one  knew  of  any  scientific,  value  were  promoted  to  a  dignity 
and  permitted  a  space  which  daily  encroached  upon  the  pa- 
ternal allotment.  The  unfamiliar  richness  of  the  soil  raised 
some  of  the  merest  vagabonds  of  the  forest  into  a  condition  of 
luxuriant  overgrowth.  Useless  or  intrusive  as  they  seemed  to 
be,  nevertheless  they  were  material  for  the  youthful  botanist. 
He  was  the  while  making  rapid  progress  in  the  acquirement  of 
that  practical  knowledge  which  was  essential  as  the  groundwork 
of  his  future  studies.  He  attempted  a  systematic  arrangement; 
but,  either  owing  to  his  own  desultory  mode  of  working  or  the 
defective  way  in  which  many  species  had  hitherto  been  noticed, 
the  attempt  failed.  Many  persons  who  have  only  heard  of 
Linnaeus  as  the  father  of  botany  are  still  under  the  impression 
that  no  systematic  knowledge  of  the  subject  existed  before  his 
time  ;  but  this  is  a  great/mistake.  Perhaps  no  study  is  of  greater 
antiquity,  or  has  attracted  more  devoted  followers  in  all  ages  of 


LINNAEUS.  535 

the  world's  history.  We  all  know  that  natural  history  was  one  of 
the  important  realms  of  science  which  made  up  the  learning 
of  Solomon.  He  knew  every  plant  and  tree,  from  the  hyssop 
of  the  garden  wall  to  the  venerable  cedar  which  crowned  the 
summits  of  Lebanon.  Among  the  Greeks,  Romans,  and  Ara- 
bians botany  was  ever  a  favorite  pursuit.  The  names  of  Aris- 
totle, Dioscorides,  Pliny,  Al  Razi,  and  Avicenna  attest  the 
importance  of  the  study  in  ancient  and  mediaeval  times.  Yet 
it  must  be  admitted  that  no  very  great  progress  was  made  by 
any  of  the  older  naturalists.  It  is  calculated  that  all  the  spe- 
cies ever  discovered  or  described  by  all  the  Greek,  Roman, 
or  Arabian  botanists  put  together  did  not  exceed  fourteen 
hundred.  The  first  herbarium  on  a  methodical  plan  was  pub- 
lished in  1530  by  Otho  Brunfels,  of  Mentz.  The  first  botanic 
garden  in  Europe  was  opened  in  1536  on  the  banks  of  the  Po 
in  Italy.  The  work  of  Brunfels  was  the  earliest  modern  work 
which  was  founded  mainly  on  observation.  Herbals,  it  is  true, 
compiled  from  Latin  or  Arabic  sources,  had  existed  in  mediaeval 
times.  One  of  the  first  printed  books  was  a  treatise  on  domestic 
medicines,  thus  early  put  to  the  press  because  of  its  popularity; 
but  nothing  of  a  really  scientific  character  had  appeared  since 
the  time  of  Pliny.  In  1551  came  out  the  Herbal  of  Jerome 
Bock,  in  which  natural  resemblances  were  made  the  basis  of 
classification.  Conrad  Gessner,  of  Zurich,  introduced  the  im- 
portant distinctions  known  as  "  genera  "  in  a  great  work  written 
as  early  as  1565,  but  not  published  for  nearly  two  hundred 
years.  Caesalpinus,  of  Arezzo,  printed  at  Florence  in  1583  a 
mass  of  suggestions  and  observations  in  botany  which  remained 
nearly  a  century  before  they  were  noticed  as  of  scientific  value. 
In  fact,  one  writer  after  another  adopted  this  or  that  method  of 
his  predecessors,  and  fitted  it  to  his  own  peculiar  theory. 
Charles  de  1'Ecluse,  or  Clusius,  first  taught  that  conciseness 
of  description  which  has  since  threatened  to  become  almost 
algebraical  in  its  strictness  and  severity.  Clusius,  by  the  way, 
tells  us  some  rather  curious  facts,  which  are  still  not  generally 
known.  Among  the  rest  he  asserts  that  potatoes  were  well 
known  and  in  common  use  in  Italy  in  the  sixteenth  century. 


536  OUR  GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 

The  popular  opinion  is  that  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  brought  them 
with  tobacco  from  Virginia,  and  that  the  English  were  the  first 
Europeans  to  appreciate  their  value,  Just  previous  to  Linne's 
own  time  had  appeared  the  great  works  of  Ray,  Tournefort, 
and  Vaillant.  Jussieu  was  his  contemporary ;  so  was  Boerhaave ; 
so  was  Reaumur.  It  will  be  seen,  then,  that  botany  was  not 
without  scientific  advocates.  But  it  was  not  very  early  in  life 
Linne's  good  fortune  to  meet  with  any  of  the  latest  writers. 
His  boyish  guides  were  one  or  two  old  folios,  of  whose  de- 
ficiencies he  bitterly  complained.  Had  he  met  earlier  with 
Tournefort's  "  Elements  of  Botany,"  his  own  acquirements 
would  have  been  more  easily  obtained,  but  they  would  probably 
never  have  been  so  solid  and  so  profound.  Tournefort's  book 
is  a  perfect  treasury  of  botanical  lore.  In  fact,  it  has  been 
said  that  with  its  aid  alone  the  student  might  become  a  bot- 
anist, so  correctly  is  the  work  illustrated,  and  so  fully  are  its 
different  headings  dealt  with.  Yet,  in  view  of  a  perfectly 
scientific  classification,  not  only  Tournefort.  but  every  other 
writer,  except  perhaps  Jussieu,  is  essentially  deficient.  To 
be  at  once  scientific  and  not  to  some  extent  artificial  is, 
without  almost  unbounded  knowledge,  practically  impossible. 
It  is  therefore  a  question  more  or  less  of  expediency;  and  on 
this  ground  are  the  respective  merits  of  the  various  botanical 
systems  fairly  comparable. 

It  was  when  studying  as  a  boy  of  eleven  at  the  school  of 
Wexio  that  Karl  Linne's  unfitness  for  the  Church  was  finally 
admitted.  The  schoolmaster  pronounced  him  a  dunce,  and 
recommended  his  being  apprenticed  to  some  handicraft,  where- 
upon the  simple-minded  father  actually  contemplated  making 
him  a  shoemaker.  A  Dr.  Rothmann,  who  was  professor  of 
medicine  to  the  Wexio  College,  had  noticed  the  peculiar  genius 
of  the  misplaced  student,  and  offered  to  take  him  into  his  own 
house.  Here  he  first  met  with  "  Tournefort's  Elements,"  which 
increased  his  ardor  while  it  enlarged  his  views.  But  even  yet 
he  could  not  arrange  his  collections.  Three  years  a  student  at 
Wexio,  he  was  no  nearer  a  learned  profession  at  the  end  of  his 
term  than  he  had  been  at  the  commencement.  And  now 


LINNAEUS.  537 

began  a  period  of  hardship  such  as  only  occasionally  falls  to 
the  lot  of  youths  of  his  position  in  life.  Following  the  advice 
of  Dr.  Rothmann,  he  visited  Upsal,  with  the  view  of  pursuing 
his  studies  in  the  university;  but  he  soon  found  that  his  slen- 
der means  —  he  had  taken  with  him  £8 — were  wofully  insuf- 
ficient even  for  the  most  modest  computation  of  student  life  in 
a  university  city.  As  for  employment  in  tuition  or  otherwise, 
every  day  rendered  that  less  and  less  possible,  as  his  wardrobe 
grew  daily  less  presentable.  Though  he  gained  a  scholarship, 
it  was  too  small  to  be  of  essential  service,  and  he  felt  most 
keenly  the  necessity  to  which  he  was  reduced  of  accepting  from 
his  fellow-students  a  cast-off  garment  or  a  proffered  dinner. 
Even  the  old  shoes  they  gave  him  had  to  be  patched  by  his 
own  hands  with  pieces  of  pasteboard.  Private  pupils  to  this 
dilapidated  stranger  were  out  of  all  question,  and  he  sank 'lower 
and  lower  in  poverty.  His  father  could  not  support  him,  and 
he  knew  of  no  one  to  whom  he  dared  apply  even  for  food  or 
shelter.  Imagine  the  sufferings  of  the  susceptible  and  ardent 
youth  during  those  weary  days,  which  good  old  Dr.  Rothmann 
had  pictured  as  likely  to  be  full  of  happy  student  life  and  gilded 
with  successful  tutorships.  All  this  dreadful  time,  however,  he 
still  hoped  for  a  bright  future ;  for  he  resolved  to  become  great 
in  his  seemingly  most  unprofitable  subject,  and  his  strong  relig- 
ious principles  kept  him  from  giving  up  the  struggle.  In  the 
autumn  of  1729  Linne  was  one  day  very  intently  examining 
certain  plants  in  the  garden  of  the  academy  when  he  was  ac- 
costed by  a  venerable  clergyman,  who  asked  him  a  variety  of 
questions  about  botany,  if  he  knew  anything  of  it,  and  how  long 
he  had  studied  the  science.  He  replied  to  every  question  with 
such  intelligence  that  the  questioner  became  deeply  interested. 
Linne  told  him  that  he  possessed  a  cabinet  containing  above 
six  hundred  indigenous  plants.  The  clergyman,  now  quite 
delighted,  invited  him  to  his  house,  and  on  learning  his  condi- 
tion supplied  him  with  every  necessary,  and  asked  his  assist- 
ance on  a  work  on  which  he  was  engaged.  Thus  began  a 
lasting  friendship  between  Linne  and  the  celebrated  Dr.  Olaus 
Celsius.  Other  advantages  soon  followed;  with  an  improved 


OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

outfit  prosperity  at  once  dawned.  The  son  of  the  professor  of 
botany  in  the  university,  Dr.  Rudbeck,  and  other  young  men, 
became  his  pupils.  Fresh  books  became  accessible,  and  new 
ideas  crowded  upon  him.  From  a  treatise  of  Vaillant  on  the 
structure  of  flowers  he  first  caught  the  idea  of  the  sexes  of 
plants,  on  which  he  afterwards  founded  his  own  botanical  sys- 
tem. Shortly  afterwards,  attracting  the  notice  of  Rudbeck,  he 
was  appointed  deputy  lecturer  and  demonstrator  of  practical 
botany  in  the  Public  Garden.  A  pleasant  manner  and  an  ani- 
mated style  of  lecturing  soon  made  him  a  great  favorite  with 
the  students,  but  his  rapid  success  was  the  cause  of  envy  in 
others.  He  possessed  those  two  invaluable  qualifications  of 
success,  great  powers  of  mind  united  with  great  physical  endur- 
ance. Hence,  when  the  Arctic  Survey  was  suggested  as  a 
means  of  improving  the  natural  history  of  Sweden,  the  Upsal 
Royal  Academy  of  Sciences  selected  Linne,  or  as  he  began  to 
be  called,  according  to  Swedish  learned  practice,  Linnaeus,  as 
a  proper  person  to  be  intrusted  with  the  undertaking.  Thus 
came  about  his  journey  to  Lapland,  his  own  account  of  which, 
from  its  intensely  personal  character  and  its  fulness  of  incident, 
may  claim  a  parallel  with  the  celebrated  "  Personal  Narrative 
of  Alexander  von  Humboldt."  Both  accounts  are  interesting 
in  the  extreme,  not  merely  from  the  eminence  of  the  writers, 
but  from  their  combination  of  personal  adventure  with  scientific 
investigation.  Among  other  valuable  results  of  this  extraor- 
dinary journey,  undertaken  on  a  vote  of  less  than  £8 "sterling, 
and  embracing  a  route  of  no  fewer  than  three  thousand  eight 
hundred  English  miles,  was  a  knowledge  of  assaying  metals, 
a  subject  quite  new  to  the  students  of  Upsal  University.  In 
the  following  year  he  gave  private  lectures  upon  it. 

On  his  return  from  Lapland  he  had  been  elected  a  member 
of  the  Academy;  but,  not  having  taken  his  degree,  he  was 
legally  disqualified  from  lecturing,  and  for  once  in  his  life  Lin- 
naeus, though  usually  a  most  amiable  man,  was  in  great  dan- 
ger of  expulsion  from  the  university,  through  his  resentment 
towards  a  rival  tutor  who  envied  his  success,  and  took  advan- 
tage of  the  statutes  to  prohibit  his  taking  pupils.  Linnaeus  in 


LINN^US.  539 

consequence  was  again  thrown  upon  a  prospect  of  poverty,  for 
these  pupils  were  his  sole  means  of  support.  Learning  his  cir- 
cumstances, several  of  them  delicately  proposed  an  excursion 
to  the  mines  of  Fahlun,  in  Dalecarlia.  This  was  in  1733,  when 
he  was  in  his  twenty-sixth  year.  After  another  journey  with 
the  sons  of  the  governor  of  the  province  he  returned  to  Fahlun 
and  spent  some  time  lecturing  on  mineralogy.  At  this  time  he 
made  the  acquaintance  of  a  physician,  and,  what  was  of  more 
consequence  to  himself,  fell  deeply  in  love  with  the  physician's 
daughter.  But  he  was  still  without  a  degree  ;  and  as  this  was  a 
sine  qua  non  towards  practising  as  a  physician,  the  profession  to 
which  he  now  turned  his  attention,  he  had  no  prospect  of  being 
able  to  marry.  He  was,  however,  accepted  by  the  lady,  whose 
rank  and  beauty  had,  he  at  first  thought,  placed  her  utterly 
beyond  his  reach.  Her  father  recommended  him  to  abandon 
botany  as  a  useless  and  unprofitable  pursuit,  and  keep  to  med- 
icine, or  he  would  never  be  able  to  maintain  a  wife.  But  he 
could  not  afford  to  take  his  degree  at  Upsal ;  and  although 
his  betrothed  sent  him  a  hundred  dollars  saved  out  of  her 
own  private  pocket-money,  he  was  obliged  to  seek  a  cheaper 
university. 

The  following  year  (1735)  he  graduated  as  M.D.  at  Harder- 
wyck,  in  Holland,  and  began  a  tour  through  the  principal  cities, 
making  many  new  friends  and  writing  several  fresh  treatises. 
Among  the  friendships  he  formed  at  Leyden  were  those  of 
Gronovius  and  Boerhaave.  By  the  advice  and  help  of  the  for- 
mer he  published  his  "  Systema  Naturae,"  and  by  the  recom- 
mendation of  the  latter  was  introduced  to  Mr.  Cliffort,  the 
burgomaster  of  Amsterdam,  in  whose  service,  as  keeper  of  the 
museums  and  gardens,  he  found  the  most  congenial  occupation 
he  had  ever  known.  At  Cliffort's  request  Boerhaave  gave  his 
young  protege  a  letter  of  introduction  to  Sir  Hans  Sloane,  in 
London,  and  accordingly  Linnaeus  visited  the  famous  old  physi- 
cian and  collector.  His  reception  was  by  no  means  cordial ; 
but  before  he  left  England  he  had  gained  the  friendship  of 
those  who  at  first  treated  him  with  coldness  and  suspicion. 
By  and  by  came  a  journey  to  Paris,  with  an  introductory  letter 


540  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

to  Antoine  de  Jussieu.  The  meeting  was  rather  curious.  On 
his  arrival  in  Paris  he  proceeded  at  once  to  the  Jardin  des 
Plantes,  where  Bernard  de  Jussieu,  a  skilful  botanist,  was  de- 
scribing some  exotics.  Fortunately  for  Linnaeus,  who  knew 
no  French,  the  description  was  in  Latin.  One  of  the  plants 
seemed  rather  to  puzzle  the  lecturer.  Linnaeus,  who  to  this 
moment  had  looked  on  in  silence,  noticing  the  embarrassment 
of  the  professor,  exclaimed  also  in  Latin,  "  It  looks  like  an 
American  plant."  Jussieu,  surprised,  turned  quickly  round  and 
said,  "You  are  Linnaeus,"  and  in  presence  of  all  the  students 
gave  him  a  cordial  welcome. 

In  French  circles,  as  in  England,  his  claims  were  at  first  met 
with  sneers,  and  he  was  spoken  of  as  "  a  young  enthusiast 
whose  only  merit  consisted  in  having  reduced  botany  to  a  state 
of  anarchy."  But  he  was  respected  before  he  left.  On  his 
return  to  Sweden  he  hastened  to  Fahlun,  and  thence  to  Stock- 
holm ;  but  the  homage  he  had  received  abroad  had  somewhat 
turned  his  head.  He  thought  himself  slighted,  and  had  it  not 
been  for  the  physician's  daughter  at  Fahlun,  he  would  have 
quitted  his  native  land.  A  mere  trifle  helped  to  keep  him  at 
home.  During  the  prevalence  of  an  influenza  he  visited  the 
lady  of  an  Aulic  councillor,  and  prescribed  for  her  a  portable 
and  facile  remedy.  This  lady  being  one  day  in  the  presence  of 
the  Queen,  Ulrica  Eleonora,  the  latter  observed  her  quietly 
putting  something  into  her  mouth.  Her  Majesty's  inquiries  led 
to  information  about  the  young  doctor,  and  he  was  sent  for  to 
prescribe  for  a  cough  under  which  she  herself  was  suffering. 
He  succeeded  in  removing  the  cough,  and  suddenly  found 
himself  a  fashionable  physician. 

Prosperity  now  set  in  for  good  and  all.  On  June  26,  1739, 
he  married  the  daughter  of  Dr.  Moraeus,  at  Fahlun,  and  shortly 
afterwards  received  the  professorship  of  medicine  at  the  Upsal 
University.  His  old  enemy,  Rosen,  at  the  same  time  became 
professor  of  botany.  By  this  time,  however,  a  reconciliation 
had  taken  place,  and  an  arrangement  was  made  by  which 
Rosen  undertook  anatomy  and  physiology,  and  Linnaeus  bot- 
any, materia  medica,  and  natural  history.  Next  came  his 


LINN^IUS.  541 

appointment  to  the  Botanic  Garden,  founded  by  the  elder 
Rudbeck,  and  a  command  from  the  King  to  arrange  and  de- 
scribe the  royal  collections.  With  the  Queen  he  became  a 
special  favorite ;  for  his  knowledge  was  inexhaustible,  and  she 
was  devotedly  fond  of  natural  history. 

In  1757,  after  an  offer  from  the  King  of  Spain  of  a  most  flat- 
tering character,  he  was  raised  to  the  rank  of  a  nobleman;  and 
took  the  title  of  Von  Linne.  The  year  afterwards  he  bought 
a  country  mansion  and  property,  —  an  event  to  which  he  had 
always  looked  forward  as  the  summit  of  his  ambition.  In  this 
place,  surrounded  by  lovely  gardens,  he  spent  the  last  years  of 
his  laborious  life.  In  1776,  after  enjoying  a  long  period  of  im- 
munity from  every  ailment  except  gout, —  and  this  he  relieved 
by  eating  wild  strawberries,  —  he  had  an  attack  of  apoplexy. 
The  next  year  he  had  another,  and  after  it  a  long  illness  which 
terminated  in  his  death  on  the  loth  of  January,  1778. 

In  speaking  of  Linnaeus  as  a  benefactor,  the  following  words 
of  Professor  Whewell  will  place  his  claims  on  a  better  footing 
than  any  title  based  merely  upon  his  services  to  natural  history 
as  a  special  branch  of  study:  "By  the  good  fortune  of  having 
had  a  teacher  with  so  much  delicacy  of  taste  as  Linnaeus,  in  a 
situation  of  so  much  influence,  botany  possesses  a  descriptive 
language  ivliich  2vi//  long  stand  as  a  model  for  all  other  subjects" 
The  nomenclature,  or  naming  of  species,  was  a  work  of  im- 
mense toil,  and  was  the  result  of  explorations  of  th,e  most 
varied  kind.  Not  only  his  own  travels,  but  the  friends  he  had 
all  over  the  world,  furnished  him  with  the  specimens  necessary 
for  his  investigations,  so  that  his  knowledge  of  the  mere  facts 
of  the  science  and  of  kindred  branches  of  natural  history  was 
immense.  The  services  he  rendered  the  sciences  of  zoology 
and  medicine  were  by  no  means  trifling,  but  they  are  dwarfed 
when  placed  beside  the  enormously  greater  services  he  rendered 
to  all  future  scientists  by  the  wonderful  completeness  of  his 
method.1 

1  It  may  be  worth  noticing  that  the  catalogue  of  the  British  Museum  contains 
no  fewer  than  four  hundred  and  twenty-four  separate  notices  of  works  relating  to 
Linnaeus. 


542  OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 


BARON    HUMBOLDT. 

[BORN  1769.    DIED  1859.] 

A  GREAT  traveller,  like  a  great  poet,  must  be  born,  not 
made.  Yet  it  is  not  given  to  every  one  who  has  the  in- 
born taste  for  travel  to  gratify  his  wish.  As  the  old-world 
adage  expressed  it,  Non  cuivis  hornini  contingit  adire  CorintJium. 
To  one  are  given  ample  means  and  favorable  opportunities, 
but  they  are  made  no  use  of.  The  proprietor  lacks  enterprise ; 
he  has  no  desire  to  leave  his  native  shores;  the  wonders  of 
far-off  lands  for  him  possess  no  charms.  Another  is  devoured 
with  a  passionate  and  insatiable  yearning,  but  it  is  accompa- 
nied by  no  hopeful  dawn  of  opportunity.  A  rare  few,  by  the 
exercise  of  an  indomitable  perseverance,  may  indeed  create  a 
way;  but  it  is  not  the  way  which,  had  they  been  free  to  choose, 
they  would  deliberately  have  selected.  Happy,  then,  is  he 
to  whom  Nature  has  given  the  will  and  for  whom  Fortune 
has  provided  the  way.  Such  a  man  was  Frederick  Henry 
Alexander  von  Humboldt.  He  was  the  second  son  of  Major 
Alexander  von  Humboldt,  a  gentleman  of  considerable  prop- 
erty, and  was  born  at  Berlin  on  the  I4th  of  September,  1769. 
The  year  of  his  birth  gave  also  to  the  world  Napoleon,  Wel- 
lington, Cuvier,  and  Chateaubriand.  His  childhood  was  spent 
at  the  chateau  of  Tegel,  about  three  leagues  from  Berlin,  in  the 
midst  of  romantic  scenery  and  on  the  shores  of  a  beautiful 
lake.  He  began  his  education  with  his  brother  William,  after- 
wards celebrated  as  a  statesman  and  philologist,  under  the 
famous  Joachim  Henry  Campe,  critic,  philologist,  and  translator 
of  "  Robinson  Crusoe."  Campe's  method  seems  to  have  been 
such  as  would  be  appreciated  at  the  present  day.  He  looked 
upon  physical  development  as  of  equal  importance  with  mental, 


BARON    HUMBOLDT. 


BARON    HUMBOLDT.  545 

and  believed  that  the  study  of  science  was  as  essential  as  the 
study  of  classics  or  philosophy.  But  the  one  thing  which  en- 
deared him  to  the  sons  of  Major  von  Humboldt  was  his 
translation  of  "  Robinson  Crusoe."  Its  perusal  filled  Alexander's 
already  excited  fancy  with  an  eager  longing  for  a  life  of  explo- 
ration and  adventure.  At  the  end  of  one  year  Campe  left  them, 
and  another  tutor  was  found,  who  carefully  continued  the  work 
so  favorably  begun.  From  Tegel  they  proceeded  to  the  Uni- 
versity of  Gottingen,  then  noted  for  the  exceptional  learning  of 
its  professors.  Among  these  were  Blumenbach,  who  occupied 
the  chair  of  physiology  and  comparative  anatomy ;  Heyne,  who 
taught  classics  and  philology;  and  Eichborn,  the  biblical 
scholar  and  orientalist.  At  Gottingen  Alexander  made  the 
acquaintance  of  an  actual  explorer.  George  Forster,  Heyne's 
son-in-law,  as  a  youth  of  eighteen,  had  sailed  with  Captain 
Cook  round  the  world,  and  had  seen  with  his  own  eyes  the 
very  things  read  about  in  "  Crusoe."  The  companionship  of 
Forster,  therefore,  decided  Alexander  von  Humboldt's  course 
of  life.  He  resolved  to  become  a  traveller.  After  a  brief  con- 
tinuance of  scientific  study,  the  two  friends  made  a  tour  of  the 
Rhine  valley  and  through  Holland,  carefully  examining  the 
mineralogy  of  the  localities  traversed  by  the  great  historic 
stream  of  the  Fatherland.  From  Holland  they  passed  over 
into  England.  On  his  return  Humboldt  published  a  brochure 
entitled  "  Observations  on  the  Basalts  of  the  Rhine,"  written 
in  support  of  the  Wernerian  or  aqueous  theory  of  rock- 
formation. 

His  next  departure  was  for  Freiburg,  in  order  to  learn  from 
the  lips  of  Werner  himself  as  much  as  possible  of  the  new 
science  of  geology.  After  two  years'  close  application,  as- 
sisted by  frequent  explorations  of  the  mineralogy  and  botany 
of  the  neighborhood,  he  produced  his  second  book,  "  Specimen 
Florae  Friborgensis  Subterraneae."  This  work  obtained  for  him 
an  appointment  as  Inspector  of  the  Mines  of  Bayreuth-Anspach, 
in  Franconia,  and  a  seat  at  the  Board  of  the  Mining  Council  of 
Berlin.  During  the  tenure  of  his  inspectorship  he  founded 
the  Public  School  at  Streben.  His  duties  included  perpetual 


546  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

descents  and  examinations  of  the  workings,  enabling  him  to 
add  largely  to  his  practical  knowledge.  But  the  field  was  too 
narrow  for  his  grasping  intellect.  In  1795  he  resigned  his 
appointments,  and  set  out  on  a  journey  through  Switzerland 
and  Italy.  To  Italy  he  was  drawn  by  the  extraordinary  dis- 
coveries of  Galvani,  at  that  time  the  talk  of  the  scientific  world. 
He  visited  the  Italian  savant,  and  repeated  his  experiments  to 
the  extent  of  submitting  personally  to  painful  and  even  dan- 
gerous operations  in  order  to  test  for  himself  the  truth  of 
Galvani's  conclusions. 

About  this  time  the  death  of  his  widowed  mother  led  to  the 
division  of  the  large  patrimony  between  the  brothers.  William, 
already  married,  resided  in  Paris.  Alexander  obtained  his 
share  only  to  dispose  of  it  in  order  to  increase  his  means  for 
travel.  After  publishing  the  results  of  his  studies  in  galvanism 
in  a  little  book  annotated  by  Professor  Blumenbach,  he  is  next 
found  deep  in  the  study  of  exotic  botany  at  Vienna.  Then 
comes  a  journey  with  the  celebrated  Leopold  von  Buch  through 
Salzburg,  Styria,  and  the  Tyrol;  but  he  was  prevented  from 
revisiting  Italy  by  the  war.  In  1797,  in  company  with  a  Mr. 
Fischer,  he  visited  his  brother  in  Paris,  in  which  city  he  was 
destined  to  form  an  acquaintance  which  influenced  many  years 
of  his  life.  Being  already  well  known  to  scientific  men,  he  was 
at  once  introduced  to  the  most  distinguished  circles  of  the 
polite  and  learned  capital.  In  these  gatherings  he  first  met 
Aime  Bonpland,  a  modest  but  highly  gifted  French  botanist. 
The  two  students  soon  discovered  that  they  possessed  many 
qualities  in  common.  Both  were  ardent,  enthusiastic,  and 
more  than  ordinarily  versed  in  physical  science ;  both  possessed 
a  special  fondness  for  botany,  and  both  were  born  travellers. 
But  there  was  one  serious  difference,  —  Bonpland  was  poor. 
Happily  Humboldt  was  rich,  and  he  proposed  a  scheme  of 
visiting  the  remoter  continents.  What  should  hinder  their 
travelling  together?  Bonpland  at  first  declined,  being  reluctant 
to  become  a  burden  on  his  generous  friend.  But  Humboldt 
insisted.  Accordingly  they  went  as  far  as  Marseilles  to  await  the 
arrival  of  a  vessel  to  take  them  across  the  Atlantic.  After 


BARON   HUMBOLDT.  547 

remaining  for  two  months  the  expected  frigate  was  found  to 
have  been  so  injured  by  a  storm  as  to  be  unable  to  proceed. 
Humboldt  therefore  went  forward  to  Madrid,  his  companion 
preferring  to  return  to  Paris  until  a  more  favorable  occasion. 
In  Madrid  the  fame  of  Humboldt's  acquirements  procured  for 
him  a  most  flattering  reception.  He  was  presented  at  Court, 
and  in  an  interview  with  the  King  obtained  free  permission  to 
visit  and  explore  all  the  Spanish  dominions  in  America.  With 
this  presage  of  success,  Humboldt  immediately  wrote  to  Bon- 
pland,  who  lost  no  time  in  joining  the  proposed  expedition. 
Well  furnished  with  the  necessary  scientific  instruments,  the 
two  friends  proceeded  to  Corunna,  whence,  on  the  5th  of  June, 
1799,  they  set  sail  in  a  Spanish  corvette  named  the  "  Pizarro." 
They  made  a  stay  of  several  days  at  Teneriffe  for  the  purpose 
of  ascending  the  celebrated  Peak,  and  making  observations  on 
the  condition  of  the  volcano  and  the  natural  history  of  the 
island.  After  a  most  successful  exploration  they  resumed  the 
voyage,  noting  both  by  day  and  night  the  ever-changing  phe- 
nomena of  sea  and  sky.  By  the  i6th  of  July  they  reached 
Cumana,  on  the  northeast  coast  of  South  America.  Their 
first  excursion  was  to  the  peninsula  of  Araya,  and  thence  to  the 
missionary  stations  in  the  mountains,  where  they  were  hos- 
pitably entertained.  In  these  places  it  was  the  rule  to  consider 
every  German  a  miner,  and  every  Frenchman  a  doctor.  This 
gave  each  of  them  plenty  of  occupation  wherever  they  went, 
specimens  of  ore  and  of  ailments  being  extremely  plentiful.  After 
some  little  time  spent  in  examining  the  botany  of  Caraccas,  they 
pursued  their  journey  to  the  Llanos,  or  Great  Plains,  penetrating 
to  the  mission  stations  on  the  Orinoco.  They  next  ascended 
that  mighty  river  as  far  as  the  Rio  Negro,  and  returned  by  way 
of  Angostura  to  Cumana.  Among  places  afterwards  visited 
were  Cuba,  Carthagena,  and  the  Maddalena,  Santa  Fe*  de 
Bogota,  Popayan,  and  Quito.  From  the  latter  city,  the  highest 
in  the  world,  they  proceeded  to  the  Cordilleras,  and  ascended 
the  great  equatorial  volcano  of  Chimborazo.  In  this  famous 
attempt  they  reached  the  highest  point  hitherto  attained  by 
man,  recording  a  barometrical  reading  equivalent  to  19,798 


54$  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

English  feet.  A  deep  chasm  in  the  snow  sixty  feet  across 
prevented  their  gaining  the  summit;  but  they  saw  it  through 
the  breaking  mist,  and  ascertained  by  observation  that  it  rose  a 
further  height  of  1,429  feet.  It  has  since  been  estimated  as 
somewhat  higher.  Though  the  loftiest  peak  in  Ecuador,  it  is 
surpassed  by  three  others  in  the  whole  range,  —  Sahama  and 
Gualatieri,  in  Bolivia,  and  Aconcagua,  in  Chili.  The  last  rises 
to  the  enormous  altitude  of  23,910  feet,  and  is  still  6,000  feet 
lower  than  the  highest  point  of  the  Himalayas.  From  Quito 
they  went  southward  to  Truxillo,  and  along  the  coast  of  that 
rainless  land  until  they  reached  Lima.  At  Callao  they  made  a 
successful  observation  of  the  transit  of  Mercury.  Leaving  Lima, 
they  explored  the  coast  to  Guayaquil,  and  thence  across  by 
sea-route  to  Acapulco  and  Mexico.  Mexico  they  traversed 
from  side  to  side,  inspecting  antiquities,  listening  to  traditions, 
and  writing  down  folk-lore.  After  a  rest  of  two  months  on 
their  return  to  Havana,  we  find  them  again  voyaging  to  the 
United  States,  and  shortly  afterwards  busy  inquiring  into  the 
commercial  and  political  relations  of  the  different  cities  of 
the  Union,  particularly  Philadelphia  and  Washington.  In  1804 
they  returned  to  Europe. 

Such  is  a  rapid  sketch  of  the  most  famous  journey  of  explo- 
ration perhaps  ever  recorded.  It  is  certainly  by  far  the  richest 
in  reliable  information.  Six  thousand  different  species  of  plants 
were  among  the  spoils  of  the  expedition.  But  the  great  value 
of  the  five  years'  journey  was  the  vast  body  of  scientific  inves- 
tigations, the  innumerable  physical  facts,  the  voluminous  records 
of  observations,  made  by  the  cultivated  and  enthusiastic  trav- 
ellers. Under  the  influence  o.f  Humboldt's  poetic  genius  the 
dry  records  of  scientific  phenomena  become  transformed  into 
brilliant  pictures.  His  descriptions  glow  with  the  fervor  of  a 
genuine  artistic  imagination. 

The  "  Personal  Narrative  "  of  the  journey  was  published  on 
the  return  of  the  travellers  to  Paris,  and  was  shortly  afterwards 
translated  into  English  by  Mrs.  Williams.  The  "  Edinburgh 
Review  "  was  warm  in  its  praises,  and  profuse  in  congratulations 
on  the  good  fortune  of  the  age  in  possessing  a  "  traveller  armed 


BARON   HUMBOLDT.  549 

at  all  points,  and  completely  accomplished  for  the  purpose  of 
physical,  moral,  and  political  information,  .  .  *  an  astronomer, 
physiologist,  botanist,  one  versed  in  statistics  and  political 
economies,  a  metaphysician,  antiquary,  and  a  learned  philologist, 
possessing  at  the  same  time  the  enlarged  views,  the  spirit,  and 
the  tone  of  true  philosophy."  ] 

Profoundly  interesting,  even  to  an  unscientific  reader,  the 
"Personal  Narrative"  abounds  with  passages  which  arrest  the 
most  casual  glance  and  fix  the  attention,  till  the  reader  becomes 
absorbed  in  the  intense  and  sustained  current  of  ideas.  The 
literature  of  every  nation  is  drawn  into  the  fascinating  story; 
and  while  the  fancy  is  still  charmed  with  some  wondrous  fact  of 
nature,  there  flashes  upon  the  page  some  brilliant  and  beau- 
tiful quotation  from  a  favorite  poet.  The  sight  of  the  Southern 
Cross  reminds  the  traveller  of  a  splendid  passage  in  Dante, — 

"  lo  mi  volsi  a  man  destra  e  posi  mente 
All'  altro  polo  e  vidi  quattro  stelle,"2 

and  so  on.  The  expression  of  the  guides,  "  'T  is  past  midnight, 
—  the  Cross  bends,"  has  been  often  quoted  ;  and  this  again  brings 
to  mind  an  incident  in  "  Paul  and  Virginia."  If  one  allusion 
misses  the  reader,  another  is  sure  to  attract  him.  The  widest 
and  most  varied  reading  alone  can  hope  to  keep  adequate  pace 
with  the  far-glancing  mind  of  this  master  of  description. 

For  twenty  years  after  his  return  he  lived  quietly  in  Berlin, 
with  occasional  visits  to  Paris,  but  with  scarcely  any  sign  of 
literary  activity.  Being  urgently  requested  by  the  Czar,  he 
undertook  at  sixty  years  of  age  an  expedition  to  Siberia  and 
the  shores  of  the  Caspian.  It  was  to  some  extent  a  fulfilment 
of  a  project  formed  many  years  before,  when  King  Frederick 
William  III.,  partly  for  this  purpose,  partly  in  recognition  of 
his  distinguished  services,  had  granted  him  a  pension  of  12,000 
thalers  and  an  appointment  in  the  palace.  In  1842  he  came  in 
the  royal  train  to  England,  and  was  present  at  the  christening 

1  Edinburgh  Review,  vol.  xxiv.  p.  134;  vol.  xxv.  p.  88. 

2  "  I  turned  me  to  the  right-hand,  and  fixed  my  mind  on  the  other  pole,  and  saw 
four  stars." 


OUR  GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 

of  the  Prince  of  Wales.  On  his  return  he  began  to  shape  his 
great  work,  the* "  Kosmos,"  the  final  proofs  of  which  he  was 
still  correcting  in  1858. 

In  person  he  was  rather  below  the  middle  height,  but  robust 
and  massive  in  build,  with  a  clear  blue  eye,  square  brow,  and  a 
profusion  of  chestnut  hair,  not  thinned  with  advancing  age,  but 
changed  to  a  mass  of  snowy  whiteness.  He  died  on  the  6th  of 
May,  1859,  and  was  buried  beside  his  parents  and  brother  at 
Tegel.  A  public  ceremony  in  Berlin  enabled  the  many  who 
honored  his  character  to  pay  their  last  tribute  of  respect  to  his 
memory.  His  life  was  indeed  one  of  the  most  useful  that  man 
could  hope  to  spend ;  yet  in  one  of  his  last  letters  he  writes, 
"  I  live  joyless  because  of  all  I  have  striven  for  from  my  youth 
I  have  accomplished  so  little." 


JOHN   SMEATON. 

[BORN  1724.    DIED  1792.] 

ON  some  rocks  named  the  Eddystones  (probably  so  called 
from  the  whirl  or  eddy  which  is  occasioned  by  the 
waters  striking  against  them),  about  fourteen  miles  from  Ply- 
mouth, stands  the  world-renowned  lighthouse  built  by  the  great 
engineer  Smeaton. 

Before  proceeding  to  the  subject  of  the  illustration,  a  few  re- 
marks on  the  lighthouses  that  were  previously  erected  on  these 
fatal  rocks  may  be  interesting. 

The  Eddystone  rocks  are  never  very  much  above  the  sea, 
and  at  high  water  are  entirely  covered  by  it.  For  centuries 
they  were  the  most  dangerous  obstacle  in  the  navigation  of  the 
Channel.  As  may  be  imagined,  the  erection  of  a  light  on  such 
a  position  was  a  work  of  very  great  difficulty.  Every  year 
showed,  by  the  number  of  wrecks,  the  absolute  need  of  a  mar- 
iners' warning;  but  nothing  was  done  until  about  1696.  At  last 
a  Mr.  Henry  Winstanley,  of  Littlebury,  in  Essex, — a  retired  mer- 


JOHN     SMEATON 


JOHN   SMEATON.  553 

cer  and  man  of  private  means,  but  who  had  never  received  any 
education  as  an  engineer  or  architect,  —  undertook  the  task  which 
eventually  cost  him  his  life.  He  was  a  man  who  had  a  natural 
genius  for  mechanical  pursuits,  but  he  was  essentially  an  ama- 
teur. It  has  almost  become  a  proverb  that  "  amateur  work  is 
always  bad  work,"  and  it  certainly  proved  so  in  his  case.  He 
began  building  the  first  Eddystone  Lighthouse  in  1696,  and,  in 
spite  of  very  great  difficulties,  it  was  finished  in  four  years. 
The  design  seems  to  have  been  the  wildest  idea  that  ever  en- 
tered the  mind  of  man.  It  was  about  one  hundred 'feet  high, 
polygonal  (or  many-cornered),  built  of  wood,  richly  orna- 
mented, and  it  had  vanes,  cranes,  etc.,  presenting  more  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  Chinese  pagoda  than  anything  else.  It  was, 
though  in  the  midst  of  a  desolate  sea,  painted  with  mottoes  of 
various  kinds,  such  as  "  Post  Tenebras  Lux,"  "  Glory  be  to 
God,"  "  Pax  in  Bello."  Perhaps  he  thought  the  last  motto 
was  suggestive  of  the  intense  strength  of  the  building,  standing 
amidst  the  wild  war  of  the  waters.  It  had  a  kitchen,  rooms  for 
the  keepers,  a  chamber  of  state  finely  decorated,  and  a  bed- 
room to  match.  There  is  a  very  scarce  print  in  existence  in 
which  is  a  representation  of  this  whimsical  man  absolutely  fish- 
ing from  the  state-room  window.  He  was  warned  over  and 
over  again  by  them  "  that  go  down  to  the  sea  in  ships,"  tljat  he 
had  offered  too  much  surface  for  the  angry  waves  to  beat  upon; 
but  he  was  so  wrapped  up  in  his  hobby  that  he  declared  his 
willingness  (in  fact,  his  desire)  to  be  in  the  lighthouse  during 
the  greatest  storm  that  ever  visited  the  Channel.  He  had  his 
wish.  He  was  in  the  lighthouse  superintending  some  repairs, 
when  a  storm  arose  which  swept  the  fantastic  building  away, 
and  with  it  six  unfortunate  souls,  including,  of  course,  the  archi- 
tect. '  There  was  nothing  left  of  the  building  itself  the  next 
morning;  beams,  iron  bars,  etc.,  were  all  carried  away.  The 
only  item  remaining  was  a  piece  of  iron  cable.  This  had  got 
wedged  into  a  crevice  of  the  rock,  and  there  it  remained  until  it 
was  cut  out  by  Smeaton's  workmen  more  than  fifty  years  after- 
wards. The  said  piece  of  chain  is  still  in  existence  in  a  private 
collection. 


554  OUR  GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 

Apropos  of  this  fearful  storm,  Addison,  in  writing  a  poem  on 
the  victory  of  Blenheim,  used  it  as  a  simile  in  a  very  powerful 
manner.  He  compares  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  directing 
the  current  of  the  great  action,  to  the  Spirit  of  the  Storm :  — 

"  So  when  an  angel  by  divine  command 
With  rising  tempests  shakes  a  guilty  land, 
Such  as  of  late  o'er  pale  Britannia  past, 
Calm  and  serene  he  drives  the  furious  blast ; 
And  pleased  th'  Almighty's  orders  to  perform, 
Rides  in  the  whirlwind  and  directs  the  storm." 

This  so  pleased  one  of  the  ministry,  that  Addison  received  his 
first  public  appointment,  the  Commissionership  of  Appeals. 

The  rocks  remained  desolate ;  no  one  came  forward  to  erect 
another  signal  light  after  such  a  catastrophe.  About  two  years' 
later  a  homeward-bound  ship  from  Virginia,  the  "  Winchelsea," 
struck  on  the  Eddystones,  and  every  soul  perished.  In  1706  a 
Captain  Lovett  (or  Lovell)  petitioned  Parliament  for  an  act  to 
grant  him  a  lease  of  the  rocks  for  ninety-nine  years.  Strange 
to  say,  the  builder  he  selected  had  not  been  brought  up  to  that 
calling.  Captain  Lovett  (or  Lovell)  selected  a  Mr.  John  Rud- 
yerd,  a  silk-mercer ;  this  time,  of  Ludgate  Hill.  There  is  no 
evidence  as  to  the  talent  Rudyerd  had  displayed  that  he  should 
have  been  selected  for  this  task.  The  building  he  proposed  was 
very  different  from  its  predecessor:  it  was  not  so  high,  being  but 
ninety  feet,  and  it  was  perfectly  round  ;  it  was  also  built  of  wood. 
Strange  as  it  may  appear,  though  it  encountered  some  partic- 
ularly severe  storms, — one  on  the  26th  of  September,  1744,  es- 
pecially,—  it  stood  till  December,  1755.  Early  in  the  morning 
of  the  2d  of  December  of  that  date,  one  of  the  keepers  (the 
other  two  being  asleep)  went  up  to  snuff  the  candles ;  on  open- 
ing the  light  chamber  he  found  it  full  of  smoke,  and  the  draught 
rushing  in  through  the  open  doorway  fanned  the  smouldering 
soot  into  flames.  He  called  loudly  for  his  companions,  but 
they  could  not  hear  him.  He  tried  his  utmost  to  extinguish  the 
fire  by  throwing  water  from  a  large  tub  which  always  stood  on 
the  floor  of  the  room,  but  the  fire  was  four  feet  above  him. 
When  his  companions  did  join  him  they  could  do  but  little,  as 


JOHN    SMEATON.  555 

they  had  to  go  down  and  ascend  a  height  of  seventy  feet  before 
they  could  get  the  water  to  throw  up  to  the  flames.  But  the 
man  who  first  discovered  the  fire  remained  at  his  post.  His 
name  was  Henry  Hall,  aged  ninety-four,  but  full  of  health  and 
vigor.  As  he  stood  at  his  post,  the  lead  from  the  roof  became 
melted,  and  poured  down  in  a  torrent  over  his  head  and  shoul- 
ders. Driven  by  this  from  the  spot,  he  and  his  companions  fled 
down  the  staircase  and  took  refuge  in  a  cave  or  hole  in  one  of 
the  rocks.  Luckily  it  was  low  water,  or  they  would  have  been 
lost.  Some  fishermen  having  seen  the  fire  gave  the  alarm  on 
shore,  and  crowds  of  boats  were  sent  to  their  assistance.  About 
eleven  o'clock  they  arrived,  but  it  was  most  difficult  to  get  the 
refugees  off  the  rock  where  they  had  taken  shelter ;  by  throw- 
ing a  rope  and  dragging  them  through  the  water,  they  were 
rescued.  One  of  the  three  disappeared  as  soon  as  he  landed, 
and  was  never  heard  of  afterwards. 

By  this  time  the  proprietors  of  the  rock  and  of  its  rights  had 
greatly  increased  in  numbers ;  they  therefore  felt  it  to  their  in- 
terest to  erect  another  lighthouse  immediately.  A  Mr.  Weston, 
one  of  their  number,  applied  to  Lord  Macclesfield,  the  President 
of  the  Royal  Society,  to  nominate  an  engineer.  His  lordship 
strongly  recommended  Smeaton,  and  after  the  usual  opposition 
which  is  sure  to  crop  up  when  great  talent  has  a  chance  to 
come  to  the  front,  he  was  selected  to  erect  the  third  and  present 
building.  Smeaton  had  been  apprenticed  to  a  mathematical- 
instrument  maker,  but  left  that  calling  to  become  a  civil  engi- 
neer. He  was  to  a  great  extent  a  self-educated  man. 

When  he  received  the  appointment  to  undertake  the  great 
work  he  was  in  Northumberland ;  but  he  arrived  in  London  in 
February,  1756.  He  started  for  Plymouth  on  the  22d  of 
March  following;  but  the  roads  being  bad  he  did  not  arrive  at 
his  destination  until  the  27th.  He  remained  in  Plymouth  nearly 
two  months,  constantly  visiting  the  rocks.  Having  got  the  con- 
sent of  his  employers,  he  decided  that  the  lighthouse  should  be 
of  stone.  He  set  about  hiring  workyards  and  workmen,  en- 
tered into  contracts  for  the  different  materials,  and  settled  all 
other  necessary  arrangements. 


556  OUR  GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 

By  the  5th  of  August  everything  was  in  readiness.  The  men 
were  landed  on  the  rock,  and  they  immediately  began  cutting  it 
for  the  foundation  of  the  building.  They  could  do  no  more 
than  this  the  first  season ;  but  the  peril  to  the  workmen  was 
very  great. 

The  usual  amount  of  hostile  criticism  was,  of  course,  liberally 
showered  on  the  great  architect  and  engineer,  and  equally,  of 
course,  with  the  usual  effect.  Kind  friends  in  crowds  declared 
that  no  lighthouse,  stone  or  otherwise,  could  ever  stand  on  the 
Eddystone  rocks. 

The  first  stone  of  the  lighthouse  was  laid  on  the  I2th  of  June, 
1757.  The  whole  work  was  completed  by  August,  1759,  and 
on  the  Qth  of  October  following  the  building  was  finished. 

On  the  i6th  of  the  same  month  the  saving  but  warning  light 
gleamed  across  the  waters.  Smeaton  says  in  his  own  book : 
"  Thus  was  the  work  completed  in  three  years  without  the  loss 
of  life  or  limb  to  any  one  concerned  in  it,  or  accident  by  which 
the  work  could  be  said  to  be  materially  retarded.  The  work- 
men had  only  421  days,  comprising  2,674  hours,  during  which 
it  was  possible  for  them  to  remain  on  the  rocks ;  and  the 
whole  time  which  they  had  been  at  work  there  was  only  1 1 1  days 
10  hours,  or  scarcely  16  weeks." 

Smeaton  declares  that  he  took  the  idea  of  the  shape  from  an 
oak.  It  is  a  round  building,  gradually  decreasing  in  circumfer- 
ence from  the  base  and  slightly  increasing  at  the  top.  In  Smea- 
ton's  work  are  diagrams  showing  the  horizontal  sections,  which 
are  most  interesting.  The  ingenuity  and  knowledge  shown  in 
the  dovetailing  of  courses  of  stone  is  simply  wonderful.  Among 
other  storms  it  has  withstood  is  the  celebrated  one  at  the  begin- 
ning of  1762.  It  was  declared  by  one  of  the  "good-natured 
friends  "  that  we  all  possess,  "  that  he  was  really  obliged  to  con- 
fess that,  as  it  had  stood  that  storm,  it  would  stand  until  Dooms- 
day." Smeaton's  triumph  was  complete,  and  he  stands  in  the 
history  of  all  civilized  nations  as  one  of  the  greatest  benefactors 
of  our  race. 

His  lighthouse — unlike  Winstanley's,  swept  from  its  founda- 
tion; unlike  Rudyerd's,  burnt  to  its  foundation — stands  firm 


SIR    RICHARD    ARKWRIGHT. 


SIR   RICHARD   ARKWRIGHT.  .  559 

to  this  day,  as  strong  as  an  oak ;  and  the  reason  it  is  about  to  be 
removed  is  the  strangest  part  of  its  history,  —  the  very  rock  it- 
self, the  foundation  on  which  Smeaton  erected  this  noble  work, 
is  decaying,  being  in  fact  washed  away  by  the  waves. 

Many  a  man  has  been  ennobled  for  his  doughty  deeds  as  a 
soldier,  many  for  their  acumen  in  the  law;  but  what  reward  is 
sufficiently  great  for  a  Smeaton  or  such  as  he,  who  by  their 
genius  give  us  the  means  of  saving  most  precious  lives  and 
render  the  great  highway  of  the  deep  safer  to  the  imperilled 
mariner? 


SIR    RICHARD    ARKWRIGHT. 

[BORN  1732.    DIED  1792.] 

A  S  the  founder  of  the  now  enormous  cotton-factory  system 
•**•  of  the  world,  Arkwright  confessedly  takes  rank  among 
the  most  active  and  foremost  of  the  benefactors  of  his  country 
and  of  his  race.  The  bringing  to  perfection  of  his  spinning- 
jenny  alone  has  rendered  his  name  lasting;  while  his  other 
improvements  in  machinery  and  modes  of  manufacture  add  to 
the  lustre  of  his  name  and  to  the  veneration  with  which  his 
progress  in  manufacturing  improvement  is  regarded. 

Born  at  Preston,  in  Lancashire,  in  1732,  Richard  Arkwright 
was  the  youngest  of  a  family  of  no  less  than  thirteen  children. 
His  parents  were  so  poor  that  he  was  never  at  school  a  single 
day,  and  grew  up  as  best  he  might  without  help.  As  soon 
as  old  enough  he  was  put  to  learn  the  trade  of  a  barber,  and 
in  1760  commenced  business  for  himself  in  an  underground 
shop  or  cellar  at  Bolton,  over  the  door  of  which,  it  is  recorded, 
he  put  up  a  board  bearing  the  words,  "  Come  to  the  Subterra- 
neous Barber.  He  Shaves  for  a  Penny,"  and  by  his  low  price 
got  away  much  of  the  trade  from  the  other  shops  in  the  town. 
To  obviate  this  the  others  reduced  their  prices  to  a  penny, 
when  —  and  this  was  proof  of  the  energy  that  characterized 
3G 


560  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

him  in  later  life  —  he  immediately  reduced  his  terms  to  half 
price,  and  announced  the  fact  on  his  boards  with  the  expressive 
words,  "  A  Clean  Shave  for  a  Halfpenny !  "  Afterwards  Ark- 
wright  became,  it  is  said,  a  barber  at  Wirksworth,  in  Derbyshire 
(near  to  which  place  he  afterwards  founded  his  cotton  mills), 
and  then  took  to  travelling  about  the  country  buying  and  selling 
hair.  Attending  "  statute  fairs,"  he  bought  their  long  tresses 
from  the  country  girls  who  there  offered  themselves  for  hire  as 
servants,  and  he  also  went  to  villages  and  towns  for  the  same 
purpose,  —  buying  up  and  cutting  off  the  hair  and  selling  it  to 
the  wig  and  peruke  makers.  From  this  and  the  sale  of  a 
hair-dye  he  is  said  to  have  made  money,  and  to  have  done  a 
profitable  trade. 

Like  many  other  men  of  his  time,  Arkwright  caught  the  con- 
tagion of  attempting  the  discovery  of  a  "  perpetual  motion;  " 
and  this  led  him  to  contriving  other  machines  to  the  neglect  of 
his  business  and  the  loss  of  his  money,  —  a  neglect  that  his 
impoverished  wife  not  unnaturally  resented,  and  in  a  fit  of  des- 
peration broke  up  his  models  as  the  only  way  she  could  devise 
of  bringing  back  his  attention  to  home  and  business.  Provoked 
and  wrathful  beyond  measure,  Arkwright,  whose  character  must 
have  been  harsh  and  vindictive  in  the  extreme,  and  who  had  not 
learned  the  Christian  principle  of  "  forgive  and  forget,"  separated 
from  her  and  never  forgave  the  act. 

Having  become  acquainted  with  a  clockmaker  at  Warrington, 
named  Kay,  and  got  him  to  assist  in  his  "  perpetual  motion 
machine,"  Arkwright  received  from  him  some  hints  and  par- 
ticulars regarding  an  invention  of  his  own  for  spinning  by 
rollers.  "  The  idea  at  once  took  firm  possession  of  his  mind, 
and  he  proceeded  to  devise  the  process  by  which  it  was  to  be 
accomplished."  To  this  he  entirely  devoted  himself,  and  he 
and  Kay  constructed  a  machine  which  they  set  up  in  a  room  at 
Preston ;  but,  fearing  its  destruction  by  a  mob,  he  first  took  it 
to  Nottingham,  where  he  obtained  pecuniary  aid  from  Messrs. 
Wright,  the  bankers,  and  afterwards,  at  their  suggestion,  to 
Jedediah  Strutt,  the  inventor  of  the  "  Derby  Ribbed  Stocking 
Machine,"  and  his  partner  Mr.  Need.  Mr.  Strutt — himself, 


SIR   RICHARD   ARKWRIGHT.  561 

through  his  inventions,  a  no  small  benefactor  of  mankind,  and 
the  founder  of  the  house  ennobled  in  the  person  of  one  of  his 
grandsons,  Edward  Strutt,  by  the  title  of  Baron  Belper  —  at 
once  entered  into  a  partnership  with  Arkwright,  a  patent  was 
secured,  and  cotton  mills  erected  which  ultimately  made  the 
fortunes  of  both  the  Arkwrights  and  the  Strutts.  From  that 
time  forward  the  machinery  was  constantly  receiving  improve- 
ments and  becoming  perfected  ;  but  the  opposition  he  met,  not 
only  from  the  working  people  but  from  other  manufacturers, 
nerved  Arkwright  to  still  greater  efforts.  Like  George  Ste- 
phenson  and  other  great  men,  he  "  persevered,"  and  success 
abundantly  crowned  his  efforts.  He  became  Sir  Richard  Ark- 
wright, and  died,  it  is  said,  a  millionnaire.  The  mills  at  Crom- 
ford,  in  Derbyshire,  built  by  him  and  his  partners,  became  at 
the  expiration  of  the  partnership  his  own  property.  He  built 
for  himself,  near  at  hand  to  them,  a  noble  seat,  Willersley  Castle, 
and  became  the  owner  of  large  and  valuable  estates. 

"  It  is  not  every  inventor,  however  skilled,"  says  Mr.  Smiles, 
"  who  is  a  veritable  leader  of  industry  like  Arkwright.  He  was 
a  tremendous  worker,  and  a  man  of  marvellous  energy,  ardor, 
and  application  to  business.  At  one  period  of  his  life  he  was 
usually  engaged  in  the  severe  and  continuous  labors  involved 
by  the  organization  and  conduct  of  his  numerous  manufactories 
from  four  in  the  morning  until  nine  at  night.  At  fifty  years  of 
age  he  set  to  work  to  learn  English  grammar  and  improve  him- 
self in  writing  and  orthography.  When  he  travelled,  to  save 
time,  he  went  at  great  speed,  drawn  by  four  horses.  Be  it  for 
good  or  evil,  Arkwright  was  the  founder  in  England  of  the 
modern  factory  system,  —  a  branch  of  industry  which  has  un- 
questionably proved  a  source  of  immense  wealth  to  individuals 
and  to  the  nation." 

A  blot  on  his  fair  fame  was  his  unforgiving  disposition  towards 
his  poor  wife.  Probably  —  but  he  could  not  see  it  —  her  destruc- 
tion of  his  first  models  was  to  him  a  true  "  blessing  in  disguise;  " 
for  it  served  as  an  incentive  to  further  and  renewed  and  improved 
action,  and  resulted  in  his  achieving  a  mechanical  success  that 
would  never  have  been  attained  but  for  that  "  cross  "  which,  in 


562  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

her  poverty  and  out  of  love  for  him,  she  had  "  laid  upon  him." 
Who,  therefore,  can  blame  the'  young  wife?  Rather  to  her, 
probably,  though  she  knew  it  not,  and  did  not  live  to  see  her 
unforgiving  husband's  ultimate  greatness,  is,  from  that  very  cir- 
cumstance, to  some  extent  owing  the  success  he  achieved  and  the 
right  to  which  he  attained  of  being  classed  among  benefactors 
of  mankind. 


ELI   WHITNEY. 

[BORN  1765.    DIED  1825.] 

ROBERT  FULTON  declared  that  Arkwright,  Watt,  and 
Whitney  were  the  three  men  who  had  done  the  most 
for  mankind  of  any  of  their  contemporaries. 

Cotton  manufacture  in  the  United  States  goes  only  a  little 
way  back  of  the  present  century ;  and  it  became  a  possibility 
only  through  the  discovery  of  a  cheap,  simple,  and  expeditious 
method  of  separating  the  fibre  of  the  plant  from  the  seeds  that 
adhere  to  it.  Without  the  invention  of  the  cotton-gin,  says  a 
veteran  American  cotton-spinner,  "  it  would  have  been  impos- 
sible for  this  country  to  have  supplied  the  raw  material  for  the 
increasing  wants  of  the  manufacturer."  "  What  Peter  the  Great 
did  to  make  Russia  dominant,"  says  Lord  Macaulay,  "  Eli 
Whitney's  invention  of  the  cotton-gin  has  more  than  equalled 
in  its  relation  to  the  progress  and  power  of  the  United  States." 
It  is  furthermore  a  matter  of  record  in  the  decision  of  Mr.  Jus- 
tice Johnson,  of  the  United  States  Court  for  the  District  of 
Georgia,  that  it  paid  the  debts  of  the  South,  and  more  than 
trebled  the  value  of  its  lands. 

So  late  as  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary  War,  scarcely  any 
cotton  was  produced  in  the  Southern  States.  The  great  staples 
of  that  section  were  rice,  indigo,  and  corn.  England  was  then 
supplying  America  with  cotton  fabrics  made  from  raw  material 
grown  in  India,  China,  and  Brazil;  and  through  the  inventive 


ELI     WHITNEY. 


ELI   WHITNEY.  565 

genius  of  Arkwright,1  she  had  secured  for  her  manufactures  a 
monopoly  of  the  markets  of  the  world.  No  cotton  at  all  was 
grown  in  South  Carolina  or  Georgia  before  the  year  1789,  and 
very  little  in  Maryland  and  Virginia;  but  the  impoverished 
planters  of  those  States  had  then  begun  to  turn  their  attention 
to  its  cultivation,  as  promising  better  returns  than  their  regular 
crops.  They  knew  that  Great  Britain  was  consuming  six  or 
seven  million  pounds  annually.  They  had  slave  labor  and  a 
productive  soil.  It  is  true  that  a  cotton  factory  —  the  first  in 
the  United  States — had  been  built  in  Beverly,  Massachusetts, 
as  early  as  1787,  and  was  certainly  in  operation  two  years  later; 
but  all  the  cotton  used  there  had  to  be  imported  from  the  West 
Indies,  where  the  labor  of  picking  cost  next  to  nothing.  Pay- 
ment was  made  for  the  staple  in  dried  fish,  that  being  the  chief 
article  of  negro  diet  in  those  islands. 

In  the  course  of  a  few  years'  trial,  the  soil  of  the  Southern 
Atlantic  States  had  been  found  excellently  adapted  to  the 
growth  of  cotton,  and  a  considerable  breadth  had  consequently 
been  planted ;  still,  so  long  as  it  took  a  negro  a  whole  day  to 
clean  a  single  pound  of  raw  cotton  by  hand  labor,  it  was  plain 
that  the  crop  could  not  be  made  a  profitable  one.  On  the 
other  hand,  could  some  less  costly  method  of  getting  rid  of 
the  seed  be  devised,  the  planters  knew  that  their  cotton  would 
find  a  ready  market  both  at  home  and  abroad. 

The  subject  was  in  this  stage  when,  in  1792,  a  young  New 
Englander,  named  Eli  Whitney,  went  to  Georgia  in  the  hope  of 
bettering  his  prospects.  He  was  the  son  of  a  Massachusetts 
farmer,  and  had  just  graduated  from  Yale.  He  expected  to 
teach  for  a  living.  Disappointed  in  his  first  purpose  of  keeping 
a  private  school,  he  began  the  study  of  law  at  Savannah ;  and, 
while  pursuing  his  studies,  he  formed  the  acquaintance  of  the 
widow  of  General  Nathaniel  Greene,  who  was  then  living  upon 
the  plantation  presented  to  her  distinguished  husband  by  the 
State  of  Georgia.  This  excellent  lady  took  the  poor  law- 
student  into  her  own  house ;  and  it  was  there,  under  her  roof, 
that  he  first  heard  discussed  the  problem  of  how  cotton  might 
1  See  the  preceding  article. 


566  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

be  made  profitable  to  the  Georgia  planter.  Whitney  had  shown 
much  native  ingenuity,  as  well  as  taste,  for  mechanical  contriv- 
ance; and,  one  day,  when  the  vexed  question  came  up  at  Mrs. 
Greene's  house,  his  benefactress  warmly  urged  the  young 
Northerner  to  try  what  he  could  do  to  solve  it.  The  appeal 
'  and  the  occasion  put  him  upon  his  mettle.  Up  to  this  moment 
Whitney  had  never  seen  either  raw  cotton  or  cotton-seed ;  but, 
inspired  by  the  confidence  of  his  benefactress,  no  less  than  by 
the  greatness  of  the  opportunity,  he  shut  himself  up  in  a  room 
that  Mrs.  Greene  provided  for  the  purpose,  and  toiled  with 
unremitting  perseverance  until  he  had  produced  an  imperfect 
model  of  his  since  famous  machine.  This  rude  machine  was 
first  exhibited  to  Mrs.  Greene  and  a  select  company  of  invited 
guests,  chiefly  planters,  all  of  whom  witnessed  its  successful 
operation  with  wonder,  but  with  delight  too ;  for  with  this  con- 
trivance it  was  seen  that  more  cotton  could  be  separated  from 
the  seed  by  the  labor  of  a  single  hand  in  one  day  than  could 
be  done  in  the  usual  way  in  months. 

The  report  of  Whitney's  wonderful  machine  soon  spread 
abroad,  causing  great  excitement  among  the  planters  and 
equal  annoyance  to  the  inventor,  who  naturally  did  not  wish 
the  public  to  see  his  work  until  he  had  thoroughly  perfected  it 
for  practical  use.  He  therefore  refused  to  exhibit  it  in  its  in- 
complete state,  which  refusal  so  excited  the  ire  of  some  law- 
less or  unprincipled  persons  that  they  broke  open  -the  place 
where  the  machine  was  kept  and  carried  it  off.  Although  the 
fruits  of  his  toil  were  thus  wickedly  wrested  from  him,  the 
inventor  could  obtain  no  redress ;  for  the  planters  selfishly 
banded  themselves  together  to  resist  any  effort  to  bring  the 
perpetrators  of  the  outrage  to  justice.  This  is  an  accurate, 
though  by  no  means  flattering,  view  of  the  morals  of  the  time. 
So,  although  he  had  thus  fully  met  the  demand  made  upon  his 
genius,  Whitney  was  not  permitted  to  reap  the  reward  of  his 
labors.  In  Georgia  he  was  at  the  mercy  of  the  mob.  He 
therefore  returned  to  Connecticut  in  the  spring  of  1793,  con- 
structed a  new  model,  and  applied  for  a  patent.  His  applica- 
tion encountered  the  determined  opposition  of  those  who  either 


ELI   WHITNEY.  567 

t 

had  profited  by  the  outrage  in  Georgia  or  who  expected  to  do 
so  in  the  future.  In  the  meantime  duplicates  of  the  original 
cotton-gin  had  been  made  from  the  stolen  model,  as  if  it  were 
public  property,  and  were  in  use  on  many  of  the  plantations 
before  the  inventor's  rights  could  be  protected  by  the  patent 
laws.  Against  all  these  obstacles  Whitney,  however,  struggled 
manfully ;  and  having  at  length  secured  his  patent-right,  he 
began  the  manufacture  of  his  machines  at  New  Haven.  He 
now  began  to  receive  some  pecuniary  benefit.  South  Carolina 
purchased  for  $50,000  the  right  to  use  the  gin  in  that  State. 
North  Carolina  also  agreed  to  pay  the  inventor  a  royalty  for 
every  cotton-gin  put  in  operation  within  her  borders.  Some  of 
the  other  Southern  States  promised  the  like  encouragement, 
but  did  nothing.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  Whitney's  discovery 
had  already  doubled  the  wealth  of  the  cotton-growing  States, 
these  results  seem  ridiculously  small;  but  when  it  is  known 
that  every  dollar  that  Whitney  had  thus  received  was  either 
spent  in  lawsuits  brought  to  secure  the  payment  of  these  sums, 
or  to  stop  the  infringements  made  upon  his  gin,  they  appear 
still  more  so.  Convinced  at  last  that  for  him,  at  least,  justice 
did  not  exist  in  the  South,  Whitney  abandoned  in  despair 
the  effort  to  obtain  it.  He  had  now  to  look  elsewhere  for 
the  means  of  support.  But  such  a  mechanical  genius  as  his 
could  not  long  fail  of  appreciation.  By  the  advice  and  assist- 
ance of  his  friend,  Oliver  Wolcott,  Whitney  now  turned  his  at- 
tention to  the  manufacture  of  fire-arms  for  the  Government. 
The  arsenals  were  either  empty  or  encumbered  with  old  and  un- 
serviceable arms.  The  hopes  and  energies  of  the  unfortunate 
inventor  were  newly  aroused,  though  in  an  entirely  differ- 
ent direction.  Whitney's  workshops  at  New  Haven  were  in 
successful  operation  in  1808-9,  turning  out  fire-arms  of  im- 
proved pattern  and  workmanship.  He  was  the  first  person  to 
make  a  musket  so  that  each  part  could  be  fitted  to  any  other 
musket.  Thanks  to  the  patronage  of  Governor  Wolcott,  who 
was  then  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  Whitney  ultimately  amassed 
a  fortune  in  the  manufacture  of  arms,  having  introduced  many 
novel  features  in  the  machinery  he  used,  as  well  as  the  finished 


568  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

weapons  he  turned  out.  All  his  efforts  to  procure  a  renewal  of 
the  patent-right  to  his  cotton-gin  were,  however,  defeated  by 
the  Southern  delegation  in  Congress;  and  so  this  gifted  in- 
ventor and  benefactor  had  the  hard  fortune  to  see  his  invention 
everywhere  in  successful  use,  and  its  merits  fully  acknowledged, 
while  he  stood  begging  for  justice  at  the  doors  of  those  whom 
his  genius  had  enriched.  Mr.  Whitney's  death,  in  1825,  elicited 
the  warmest  encomiums  to  his  personal  worth  as  a  man;  but 
his  experience  as  the  inventor  of  the  cotton-gin  is  a  signal 
instance  of  the  inherent  selfishness  of  human  nature  that  we  can 
have  no  pleasure  in  putting  upon  record. 


JAMES     WATT. 

[BORN  1736.    DIED  1819.] 

'T^HOSE  who  knew  James  Watt  as  a  boy  must  have  been 
-L  very  undiscerning  if  they  did  not  read  in  him  the  promise 
of  greatness.  Frail  and  sickly,  he  was,  nevertheless,  brimful  of 
intellectual  life.  Ardently  loving  fiction,  making  and  telling 
striking  tales,  wandering  alone  at  night  to  watch  the  stars, 
scrutinizing  every  instrument  and  machine  that  fell  in  his  way 
to  master  the  rationale  of  its  uses,  engrossed  with  the  "  Elements 
of  Natural  Philosophy,"  performing  chemical  experiments  and 
contriving  an  electrical  machine,  dissecting,  botanizing,  break- 
ing the  rocks  for  mineralogic  specimens,  working  in  metal, 
making  miniature  cranes,  pulleys,  capstans,  and  pumps,  enter- 
ing the  cottages  and  gathering  the  local  traditions  of  the  peas- 
ants,—  such  was  the  wonderful  boy  of  fifteen  who  afterwards 
said,  "  I  have  never  yet  read  a  book  or  conversed  with  a  com- 
panion without  gaining  information,  instruction,  or  amusement. ' 
At  nineteen  the  adventurous  youth  tried  his  fortune  in  London ; 
and,  after  many  a  struggle  and  trial,  returned  to  Scotland,  and 
at  one-and-twenty  was  installed  in  the  quadrangle  of  Glasgow 


JAMES  WATT. 


JAMES   WATT.  571 

College  as  "  Mathematical  Instrument  Maker  to  the  University." 
Here  he  carried  on  a  trade  in  quadrants  and  musical  instruments 
of  his  own  making.  He  built  an  organ,  and  it  was  the  admira- 
tion of  musicians.  Students  and  professors  frequented  his  shop. 
Robison,  afterwards  professor  of  natural  philosophy,  expected 
to  find  in  him  a  workman,  and  was  surprised  to  find  a  philoso- 
pher. Other  proficients  besides  Robison  frankly  acknowledged 
their  inferiority  to  Watt;  and  they  did  so  the  more  readily 
because  they  could  not  help  loving  the  naive  simplicity  and 
candor  of  his  character.  To  Robison  he  owed  one  invaluable 
suggestion,  —  the  application  of  steam  to  the  moving  of  wheel- 
carriages. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  there  was  no  steam-engine 
before  James  Watt.  There  was  that  of  Newcomen,  on  which 
he  had  to  improve.  But  the  problem  of  adequate  improvement 
was  dark  till,  in  a  lonely  walk  one  Sunday  afternoon  in  the  spring 
of  1765,  the  solution  of  it  flashed  upon  his  mind.  But  many 
long  and  laborious  years  were  needed  before  he  could  bring  to 
perfection  the  engine  which  was  completed  in  thought.  Black- 
smiths and  tinners  were  the  workmen  available  for  his  purpose 
in  Glasgow;  no  capitalists  there  were  likely  to  take  up  the 
steam-engine.  Several  thousand  pounds  would  be  required  to 
give  a  fair  trial  to  his  apparatus;  and  if  Dr.  Roebuck  had  not 
become  his  associate  he  might  never  have  been  able  to  bring 
his  grand  invention  before  mankind.  At  length,  in  1768,  the 
model  was  finished;  but  a  model  is  to  a  mechanic  only  what 
a  manuscript  unpublished  is  to  an  author.  The  patent  was 
obtained  in  1769,  but  much  still  remained  to  be  done.  Limited 
means  depressed  his  spirits,  and  the  almost  insuperable  difficul- 
ties caused  by  bad  mechanical  workmanship  proved  dreadfully 
disheartening.  "  Of  all  things  in  life,"  he  said  in  moments  of 
despondency,  "  there  is  nothing  more  foolish  than  inventing." 
And  again' he  wrote:  "To-day  [Jan.  31,  1770]  I  enter  into  the 
thirty-fifth  year  of  my  life,  and  I  think  I  have  hardly  done 
thirty-five  pence'  worth  of  good  in  the  world." 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  the  most  trying  calamities  —  calamities 
such  as  generally  befall  those  who  are  to  benefit  their  kind 


572  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

largely — that  Watt  entered  into  partnership  with  Boulton,  him- 
self a  great  designer,  contriver,  and  organizer.     It  was  he  who 
said  to  Boswell  in  1776,  in  reference  to  his  manufacture  of  steam- 
engines  in  Soho,  "  I  sell  here,  sir,  what  all  the  world  desires  to 
have,  —  POWER."     Seven  hundred  men  were  at  that  time  work- 
ing in  his  factory.      But  the  capital   invested  by   him  in  the 
undertaking  amounted  to  ,£47,000  before  any  profits  began  to 
be  derived  from  their  sale.     Even  with  the  extension   of  the 
patent,  it  was  not  till  after  1783  that  Watt  and  Boulton  had  the 
satisfaction  of  finding  that  there  was  really  a  balance  to  their 
profit.     At  length  their  long  toil,  perseverance,  and  patience 
were  rewarded  in  a  pecuniary  point  of  view ;   but  they  would 
have  enjoyed  the  higher  satisfaction  of  having  benefited  man- 
kind even  if  they  had  died  beggars.     Their  first  experiments 
were  made  in  Cornwall,  where  the  size,  swiftness,  and  horrible 
noise  of  the  engine  greatly  astonished  the  natives.    "  The  strug- 
gles," Watt  wrote  to  Dr.  Black,  "  which  we  have  had  with  natu- 
ral difficulties,  and  with  the  ignorance,  prejudices,  and  villanies 
of  mankind,  have  been  very  great,  but  I  hope  are  now  nearly 
come  to  an  end."     Yet  they  continued  unabated ;   and  so  also 
did  his  headaches  and  despondency.      "  Solomon,"   he  wrote 
bitterly  to  Mr.  Boulton,  "  said  that  in  the  increase  of  knowledge 
there  is  increase  of  sorrow;   if  he  had  substituted  business  for 
knowledge,  it  would  have  been    perfectly  true."    Attempts  to 
pirate  his  inventions  sharpened  his  distresses.    Ordinary  mech- 
anicians made  their  fortunes  by  these  despicable  means.     It  had 
been  so  during  life:   his  drawing-machine,  his  microscope,  his 
crank,  had  been  appropriated  and  purloined,  and  now  the  same 
fate  threatened  the  condensing-engine  on  which  he  had  bestowed 
twenty  years'  toil.     The  Cornish  miners,  with  the  most  selfish 
dishonesty,  sought  to  evade  the  payments  which  they  had  stipu- 
lated to  Boulton  and  Watt.     Thousands  of  pounds  had  to  be 
spent  to  vindicate    the  rights   of  the  patentees;    and   though 
invariably  successful,  the  anxiety  these  legal  processes  caused 
to  Watt's  too  sensitive  mind  were  such  as  can  be  imagined  only 
by  those  who  have  been  drawn  against  their  will  within  the 
whirlpool  of  law  courts.     Invention  to  Watt  was  martyrdom; 


JAMES   WATT.  573 

yet  so  strongly  did  the  inventive  instinct  work  within  him  that 
his  physicians  strove  in  vain  to  dissuade  him  from  further  inven- 
tions. New  contrivances  continued  to  be  the  pastime  of  his 
leisure  hours ;  and  thus  to  his  irrepressible  genius  for  mecha- 
nism were  due  the  machine  for  copying  letters,  the  instrument 
for  measuring  the  specific  gravity  of  fluids,  his  regulator  lamp, 
his  machine  for  drying  linen,  and  his  plan  of  heating  buildings 
by  steam. 

Notwithstanding  all  his  troubles  and  trials  Watt  lived  to  old 
age,  and  enjoyed  a  remarkable  exemption  from  the  infirmities 
usually  incident  to  it.  Until  eighty-three  years  old  he  went 
daily  into  his  workshop  after  answering  letters,  and  was  often  seen 
in  the  company  of  the  men  of  the  day  most  illustrious  in  liter- 
ature and  science.  Walter  Scott,  Jeffrey,  and  Mrs.  Schimmel- 
Penninck  have  all  left  us  most  interesting  records  of  his  amiability 
and  extensive  knowledge.  Scarcely  a  subject  could  be  started 
in  which  he  was  not  at  home,  and  wherever  he  went  he  proved 
a  centre  of  attraction.  Even  little  children  thronged  around 
him.  We  stand  amazed  at  the  enormous  results  of  the  activity 
of  a  single  mind,  when  we  cast  our  eye  over  a  railway  map  and 
think  of  the  impetus  his  invention  has  given  to  the  life  of  the 
civilized  world.  Nor  have  these  results  reached  their  goal.  To 
remote  posterity  they  will  appear  only  to  have  just  begun;  for 
it  is  impossible  for  us  even  to  conjecture  to  what  ends,  and 
to  how  many,  the  use  of  steam  locomotion  may  in  future  be 
applied.  There  is  an  interaction  among  discoveries  which 
makes  their  value  increase  in  geometrical  proportion  as  they 
succeed  one  another ;  but  we  may  be  sure  that,  however  great 
and  numerous  may  be  the  improvements  in  steam  machinery, 
posterity  will  never  forget  the  name  of  James  Watt  nor  disown 
their  obligations  to  his  genius.  The  pen  of  Brougham  has  not 
exaggerated  his  merits  in  the  epitaph  on  the  statue  of  James 
Watt  in  Westminster  Abbey  executed  by  the  chisel  of  Chantrey. 
The  great  lawyer  was  well  employed  when  he  wrote  it ;  and  so 
was  the  great  sculptor  when  he  preserved  in  marble  the  memory 
of  so  great  a  man. 


574  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 


ROBERT   FULTON. 

[BORN  1765.     DIED  1815.] 

WE  who  are  accustomed  to  travel  in  the  floating  palaces 
of  our  day  at  a  speed  of  from  fifteen  to  twenty  miles  an 
hour,  look  back  with  wonder  upon  the  first  feeble  attempts  that 
were  made  to  propel  vessels  by  steam.  The  wonder  increases 
that  the  discovery  came  so  late  as  it  did ;  for  we  are  hardly 
able  now  to  realize  by  what  slow  stages  steam  locomotion  ad- 
vanced to  assured  success.  Now  that  steam  itself  is  hardly 
swift  enough  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  our  hurrying  age,  the 
idea  of  travelling  four  or  five  miles  an  hour  may  well  cause  a 
smile ;  but  to  seriously  consider  that  it  is  only  three  quarters  of 
a  century  since  even  this  slow  rate  of  progress  was  considered 
one  of  the  grandest  achievements  of  modern  times  almost 
passes  our  ability. 

Successful  application  of  steam  to  navigation  is  unquestion- 
ably due  to  the  persevering  efforts  of  Robert  Fulton ;  because, 
while  Fitch  and  others  had  the  same  idea  that  he  had,  and  were 
pursuing  it  in  their  own  way,  he  outstripped  them  in  the  race 
by  superior  genius.  Many  had  already  tried  and  failed  where 
Fulton  at  last  succeeded,  so  that  the  world  gives  no  more  than 
its  just  reward  to  his  patient  and  unremitting  labors  when  it 
places  Robert  Fulton's  name  upon  the  roll  of  benefactors,  "  not 
for  an  age,  but  for  all  time." 

Yet  how  simple  the  problem  seems  to  us  in  the  light  of 
present  knowledge  !  To  so  apply  the  power  of  the  steam-engine 
to  a  shaft  as  to  drive  a  water-wheel,  —  this  was  all.  And  how 
to  do  it  was  puzzling  the  inventors  of  Watt's  and  Fulton's  day, 
—  inventors  who  had  already  settled  it  in  their  own  minds  that 
the  thing  was  entirely  feasible.  So  indeed  it  seemed ;  for  the 
steam-engines  of  Watt  and  Boulton  were  already  doing  wonders 


37 


ROBERT     FULTON. 


ROBERT   FULTON.  577 

in  the  way  of  mechanical  labor,  and  were  slowly  opening  the 
eyes  of  inventors  to  the  greater  possibilities  that  lay  in  the 
future  of  steam  power. 

Robert  Fulton  was  one  of  those  rare  minds  whose  intellectual 
activities  must  of  necessity  lead  to  some  brilliant  result.  In  the 
popular  phrase,  he  was  born  great.  His  early  career  and  that 
of  his  countryman,  Morse,  are,  up  to  a  certain  point,  almost 
identical ;  for  he,  like  Morse,  had  chosen  the  profession  of  a 
painter,  and  he  too  had  been  a  pupil  of  West.  It  was  while 
he  was  in  England,  working  over  his  easel,  that  Fulton's  mind 
began  definitely  to  take  the  direction  of  mechanical  science,  — 
a  study  in  which  he  ultimately  became  absorbed  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  everything  else.  He  realized  that  it  was  his  true  voca- 
tion. Yet  his  earlier  projects,  valuable  as  they  were,  seem  only 
to  have  been  so  many  steps  towards  higher  achievement.  For 
several  years  he  applied  himself  closely  to  the  study  of  civil- 
engineering,  arid  especially  to  the  improvement  of  canal  navi- 
gation. In  1797  Fulton  went  to  Paris,  where  the  friendship  of 
Joel  Barlow  procured  for  him  an  entrance  into  the  brilliant 
coterie  of  savans  which  the  sagacity  of  the  First  Consul  had 
attracted  to  his  fortunes.  War  was  then  the  business  of  Eu- 
rope, and  warlike  inventions  superseded  for  the  moment  every 
other  in  importance.  During  Fulton's  residence  in  Paris  he 
had  the  good  fortune  to  meet  Chancellor  Livingstone,  the 
American  minister,  who  thenceforth  became  the  inventor's  fast 
friend,  generous  patron,  and  active  coworker;  for  Livingstone 
himself  had  been  seriously  occupied  with  the  question  of  steam 
navigation,  and  in  Fulton  he  had  at  last  found  the  man  who 
was  capable  of  bringing  this  grand  scheme  to  a  fortunate  con- 
clusion. On  the  other  hand,  in  Livingstone  Fulton  found  a 
patron  possessed  of  large  and  varied  attainments,  of  command- 
ing influence  and  position,  and  of  ample  wealth,  who  had, 
moreover,  the  success  of  the  project  to  which  his  own  life  was 
devoted  quite  as  much  at  heart  as  himself;  so  that  the  alliance 
promised  only  the  best  results. 

Exactly  what   Livingstone    and    his    associates    had    accom- 
plished before  Fulton  joined  them,   is  not  clearly  perceived. 


5/8  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Some  experiments  had  been  made ;  and  when  it  is  known  that 
these  experiments  had  advanced  so  far  that,  with  characteristic 
foresight,  Livingstone,  in  1798,  had  secured  from  the  State  of 
New  York  an  exclusive  privilege  to  navigate  with  steam-vessels 
the  waters  of  that  State,  we  are  prepared  to  believe  either  that 
certain  results  were  looked  for,  or  that  Livingstone  desired  a 
monopoly  that  would  enable  him  to  carry  on  his  experiments  at 
leisure.  This  was  three  years  before  he  met  Fulton  in  Paris. 
His.  application  had  been  treated  with  derision  by  the  legisla- 
ture, but  it  had  been  successful ;  and  so  a  way  for  making  the 
invention  profitable,  when  it  should  come,  was  prepared. 

After  experimenting  two  years,  Fulton  produced,  in  1803,  a 
boat  that  made  under  steam  a  successful  trial-trip  on  the  Seine. 
The  grand  schemes  of  Napoleon  had  also  set  the  American 
inventor's  brain  at  work  upon  a  series  of  experiments  that 
resulted  in  the  perfection  of  his  submarine  torpedo,  which  is 
certainly  one  of  the  most  original  as  well  as  one  of  the  most 
destructive  engines  of  modern  warfare.  The  steamboat  was, 
however,  his  fixed  idea.  In  1806  Fulton  returned  to  the  United 
States,  and  from  this  moment  he  applied  all  the  resources  of  his 
mind  to  the  subject  of  steam  navigation.  He  immediately  set 
about  building  a  boat  one  hundred  and  thirty  feet  long,  eighteen 
wide,  and  seven  deep.  An  engine  was  ordered  from  Watt  and 
Boulton.  All  the  machinery  was  uncovered,  and  its  working 
exposed  to  view.  Fulton's  principle  was  the  familiar  one  of 
working  paddles  by  a  shaft  extending  outside  the  hull.  These 
paddle-wheels  were  only  fifteen  feet  in  diameter,  with  a  dip  of 
two  feet.  When  the  "  Clermont"  was  completed,  —  for  she  was 
so  named  from  the  Livingstone  manor  on  the  Hudson, — -  and  it 
was  announced  that  on  the  4th  of  August,  1807,  the  boat  would 
start  on  a  voyage  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles,  to  Albany, 
under  steam  alone,  public  expectation  was  raised  to  fever  heat. 
Underneath  this  there  was,  however,  a  general  feeling  of  incre- 
dulity in  the  success  of  the  scheme,  and  of  pity  for  the  vision- 
ary Fulton  and  his  misapplied  talents.  But  when  the  hour 
fixed  for  the  trial  actually  came,  —  when  the  "  Clermont "  was 
unmoored,  her  rude  engine  started,  and,  steaming  slowly  out 


ROBERT   FULTON.  579 

upon  the  broad  river,  she  began  her  eventful  voyage  in  the 
midst  of  an  ominous  silence  on  the  part  of  the  multitude  of 
spectators,  then  came  a  moment  of  supreme  suspense  for  the 
anxious  inventor,  which  it  will  be  best  to  allow  him  to  describe 
in  his  own  way. 

"  The  boat  moved  on  a  short  distance,  and  then  stopped  and  became 
immovable.  To  the  silence  of  the  preceding  moment  now  succeeded 
murmurs  of  discontent,  whispers,  and  shrugs.  I  could  hear  distinctly 
repeated  by  those  around  me  :  '  I  told  you  so ;  it  is  a  foolish  scheme.  I 
wish  we  were  well  out  of  it.'  I  stepped  up  to  where  I  could  be  heard, 
and  spoke  to  them.  I  stated  that  I  knew  not  what  was  the  matter ;  but 
if  they  would  be  quiet  and  indulge  me  for  half  an  hour  I  would  either 
go  on  or  abandon  the  voyage  for  that  time.  This  short  respite  was  con- 
ceded without  objection.  I  went  below,  and  examined  the  machinery, 
and  discovered  that  the  cause  was  a  slight  maladjustment  of  some  of  the 
work.  In  a  short  time  it  was  remedied.  The  boat  was  again  put  in 
motion.  She  continued  to  move  on.  All  were  incredulous;  none 
seemed  willing  to  trust  to  the  evidence  of  their  own -senses." 

The  passage  of  the  "  Clermont "  up  the  Hudson  was  a  tri- 
umphal progress.  Multitudes  flocked  to  the  shores  to  see  this 
strange  craft  moving  steadily  on  without  the  help  of  wind  or 
sails.  In  thirty-six  hours  she  had  steamed  the  one  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  to  Albany  without  meeting  with  the  least  accident. 
With  modest  triumph  Fulton  records  that  the  "  Clermont "  had 
overtaken  the  various  sailing  craft,  and  had  passed  them  as  if 
they  had  been  at  anchor.  The  following  letter  gives  too  con- 
cisely his  own  account  of  the  voyage.  We  append  it  as  a 
literary  curiosity :  — 

NEW  YORK,  Aug.  20. 
To  THE  EDITOR  OF  THE  "AMERICAN  CITIZEN:"  * 

SIR,  —  I  arrived  this  afternoon  at  4  o'clock,  in  the  steam  Boat  from 
Albany.  As  the  success  of  my  experiment  gives  me  great  hope  that  such 
boats  may  be  rendered  of  much  importance  to  my  country,  to  prevent 
erroneous  opinions  and  give  some  satisfaction  to  the  friends  of  useful 
improvements,  you  will  have  the  goodness  to  publish  the  following  state- 

1  Then  the  other  name  of  the  "  Commercial  Advertiser." 


580  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

ment  of  facts :  I  left  New  York  on  Monday,  i  o'clock,  and  arrived  at 
Clermont,  the  seat  of  Chancellor  Livingston,  at  i  o'clock  on  Tuesday, 
time  24  hours,  distance  no  miles.  On  Wednesday  I  departed  from  the 
Chancellor's  at  9  in  the  morning,  and  arrived  at  Albany  at  5  in  the  after- 
noon, distance  40  miles,  time  8  hours ;  —  the  sum  of  this  is  150  miles  in 
32  hours,  equal  to  near  5  miles  an  hour.  On  Thursday,  at  9  o'clock  in 
the  morning,  I  left  Albany,  and  arrived  at  the  Chancellor's  at  6  in  the 
evening ;  I  started  from  there  at  7,  and  arrived  at  New  York  on  Friday 
at  4  in  the  afternoon,  time  30  hours,  space  run  through  150  miles  — 
equal  to  5  miles  in  an  hour.  Throughout  the  whole  way,  my  going  and 
returning,  the  wind  was  ahead ;  no  advantage  could  be  drawn  from  my 
sails  —  the  whole  has,  therefore,  been  performed  by  the  power  of  the 
steam-engine. 

I  am,  Sir,  Your  most  obedient 

ROBERT  FULTON. 


GEORGE    STEPHENSON. 

[BORN  1781.    DIED  1848.] 

*  I  "'HE  inventor  of  the  locomotive  steam-engine  was  born  in 
-*-  a  village  of  Northumberland  in  1781.  His  earliest  recollec- 
tions were  of  the  colliery  of  which  his  father  was  fireman,  and 
Dewley  Burn,  where  he  herded  cows  and  in  his  leisure  modelled 
clay  engines  and  constructed  a  miniature  windmill.  Promoted, 
when  a  boy,  from  being  fireman  of  an  engine  to  be  plugman, 
he  would  sometimes  take  the  machine  to  pieces  and  put  it  to- 
gether again  in  order  to  understand  it  the  better.  At  eighteen, 
when  earning  but  twelve  shillings  a  week,  he  attended  a  night 
school,  and  from  learning  to  read  and  write  his  name  got  on 
to  learn  arithmetic  at  fourpence  a  week.  At  twenty  he  was 
brakesman ;  big,  raw-boned,  temperate,  industrious,  athletic,  and, 
though  not  combative,  ready  to  defend  himself  if  "  put  upon." 

With  the  new  century  he  married  Fannie  Henderson ;  and 
the  ballast  brought  by  the  collier  ships  to  Newcastle  looked  to 
him  to  be  lifted  out  of  the  hold.  He  lived  at  Ballast  Hills, 


GEORGE     STEPHENSON. 


GEORGE    STEPHENSON.  583 

gave  much  time  to  mechanical  experiments,  labored  in  vain 
to  procure  perpetual  motion,  and  became  clock  cleaner  and 
mender  to  the  whole  neighborhood.  This  was  better  than 
cobbling  and  shoemaking,  which  he  had  practised  at  Newburn 
to  earn  pence  for  the  schoolmaster.  In  1803  his  first  and  only 
child  was  born,  his  wife  died,  and  the  next  year  he  superin- 
tended the  working  of  one  of  Boulton  and  Watt's  engines  at 
Montrose.  Provisions  were  at  war  prices ;  but  he  saved  £28 
in  a  year,  and  returned  to  Killingworth  to  help  his  father,  who 
was  in  deep  distress.  He  rose  only  by  slow  degrees,  and  from 
engineman  at  Killingworth  colliery  he  became  engineer  with 
;£ioo  a  year. 

He  was  now  over  thirty  years  of  age,  and  the  most  impor- 
tant epoch  of  his  life  was  at  hand.  He  had  seen  many  attempts 
to  construct  a  locomotive  steam-engine,  and  had  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  he  could  surpass  them  all.  Hitherto  every 
success  had  been  also  a  failure,  for  none  had  combined  econ- 
omy and  efficiency.  Lord  Ravensworth  was  one  of  his  em- 
ployers, and  to  him  he  communicated  his  design.  He  obtained 
a  patient  hearing,  and  was  commissioned  to  make  a  trial. 
His  plan  at  first  was  to  make  one  for  the  colliery  tramways 
only ;  but  he  foresaw,  even  at  this  stage  of  his  labors,  that 
"  there  was  no  limit  to  the  speed  of  such  an  engine,  if  the 
works  could  be  made  to  stand  it."  But  how  great  were  his 
difficulties  !  An  engine  built  in  the  workshops  at  West  Moor, 
the  tools  themselves  to  be  made,  the  colliery  blacksmith  the 
chief  workman,  and  everything  resting  on  the  designer  !  How- 
ever, in  ten  months  it  was  finished ;  and  he  placed  it  on  the 
railway,  July  25,  1814.  It  was  successful,  though  cumbrous 
and  capable  of  great  improvement.  It  drew  eight  loaded  car- 
riages, weighing  thirty  tons,  at  the  rate  of  four  miles  an  hour. 
But  it  cost  about  as  much  as  horse-power;  the  waste  steam 
escaped  freely  into  the  air,  and  it  went  hissing  away  with  a 
tremendous  noise,  while  the  lookers-on  laughed  and  called  it 
"  My  Lord."  True  genius  is  not  to  be  baffled  with  difficulties; 
rather  they  are  its  life.  Stephenson  saw  a  remedy  for  the 
waste  steam.  He  invented  the  steam-blast,  —  that  is,  made  the 


584  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

waste  steam  promote  the  combustion  of  the  fuel,  —  and  by  that 
means  doubled  the  engine's  power  without  any  increase  of  its 
weight.  This  however,  did  not  satisfy  him.  Next  year  he 
made  another  engine,  which  must  be  regarded  as  the  type  of 
the  present  locomotive  engine,  though  it  has  been  consider- 
ably modified  in  minor  details. 

During  the  nine  years  that  elapsed  from  1816  to  1825,  Ste- 
phenson  was  constantly  advancing  from  one  step  to  another  of 
improved  locomotive  machinery.  He  found  that  the  tramroads 
were  carelessly  kept,  and  that  a  firm  bed  and  a  regular  level  were 
essential  requisites.  He  took  out  a  patent  for  an  improved 
form  of  rail  and  chair ;  and  he  placed  the  locomotive  engine  on 
springs,  and  applied  his  latest  invention  to  the  conveyance  of 
goods.  The  railway  which  he  constructed  for  the  owners  of 
Hetton  colliery  was  opened  for  traffic  in  1822;  and  he  found 
a  wider  field  for  his  talents  in  the  construction  of  the  Stock- 
ton and  Darlington  line,  of  which  he  was  appointed  engineer. 
He  worked  at  it  with  a  will ;  started  every  morning  with  his 
dinner  in  his  pocket,  and  got  it  cooked  wherever  he  happened 
to  pass  about  noon.  The  eyes  of  Parliament  and  of  the  nation 
were  now  upon  him,  though  many  jeered  at  his  enthusiasm. 
At  last  the  line  was  opened  by  an  engine  which  he  drove 
himself.  It  drew  a  load  of  ninety  tons  at  the  rate  of  over 
eight  miles.  It  was  highly  remunerative,  and  served  for  goods 
and  passenger  traffic.  This  one  railway  has  done  much  for 
society.  The  town  and  port  of  Middlesborough-on-Tees, 
with  eight  or  nine  thousand  inhabitants,  has  taken  the  place 
of  a  solitary  farm ;  and  where  a  few  heads  of  cattle  strayed 
and  pastured  there  are  now  reading-rooms  and  a  national 
school,  an  observatory,  manufactures  of  rope  and  sail-cloth, 
iron-works,  yards  for  shipbuilding,  commodious  docks,  and 
extensive  exports  of  coal.  All  this  has  come  of  Mr.  Pease's 
Darlington  line,  with  Stephenson  for  its  engineer,  and  the  old 
stage-coach  mounted  on  a  truck  used  as  a  passenger  carriage, 
and  called  "  The  Experiment." 

His  great  trial  of  strength  was  yet  to  come.      It  was  pro- 
posed to  run  a  railway  with  a  train  of  a  hundred  tons  weight 


GEORGE   STEPHENSON.  585 

across  the  spongy  and  impassable  Chat  Moss  between  Man- 
chester and  LiverpQol.  Stephenson  said  he  could  do  it;  but 
though  every  obstacle  was  thrown  in  his  way,  he  fought  his 
battle  single-handed,  and  he  won  it.  He  obtained  his  bill  and 
constructed  his  railway.  The  best  part  of  the  line  is  that 
which  crosses  Chat  Moss;  and  thajt  part  cost  no  more  than 
^"28,000.  He  placed  on  this  line  his  latest  improvement,  the 
"  Rocket,"  which  had  won  the  prize  of  ^500  offered  by  the 
directors,  and  he  drove  it  himself  thirty  miles  an  hour.  The 
object  of  his  life  was  now  achieved,  and  in  it  he  acquired  the 
reward  of  his  labors.  Wealth  of  course  filled  his  coffers,  —  at 
least,  all  the  wealth  he  desired,  and  more  than  he  needed. 
As  to  titles  and  honors,  he  would  not  put  out  his  hand  to 
take  them.  He  would  die,  he  said,  with  the  name  he  was 
christened  by,  and  would  have  "  no  flourishes  to  it,  either 
before  or  after." 

George  Stephenson  was  assisted  in  his  labors  by  his  son 
Robert,  who  afterwards  became  almost  as  distinguished  as  his 
father.  Occupation  of  a  most  remunerative  kind  poured  in 
upon  them;  and  the  father  was  incessantly  engaged  till  1840, 
when  he  resigned  most  of  his  engagements,  settled  at  Tapton, 
in  Derbyshire,  and  found  in  the  Clay  Cross  collieries  a  fresh 
pursuit.  Often  he  visited  the  Mechanics'  Institutes  in  his 
neighborhood,  and  encouraged  them  by  relating  the  circum- 
stances of  his  own  career.  His  interest  in  railway  extension 
continued  undiminished ;  and  he  took  part,  as  engineer,  share- 
holder, or  chairman,  in  the  Maryport  and  Whitehaven,  the 
Norwich  and  Yarmouth,  and  the  Edinburgh  and  Newcastle 
East  Coast  line,  with  which  is  connected  the  stupendous  high- 
level  bridge  at  Newcastle,  designed  by  his  son.  Of  this  last 
work  he  was  one  of  the  committee  of  management,  but  his 
life  was  not  prolonged  to  see  its  completion.  He  travelled 
also  in  Belgium  and  Spain  in  connection  with  some  railway 
projects;  but  on  returning  from  the  latter  country,  in  1845, 
he  bid  a  more  complete  adieu  to  railway  matters,  and  de- 
voted his  time  almost  entirely  to  his  lime-works  and  collieries, 
his  farm  and  garden,  and  revived  his  early  taste  for  keeping 


586  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

birds  and  animals.  Though  he  was  invariably  kind  and  atten- 
tive to  the  numerous  applications  he  received  for  advice  and 
assistance,  he  kept  himself  as  free  as  he  could  from  projectors 
and  inventors  of  all  kinds,  and  thus  passed  the  decline  of  his 
life  in  peace  and  ease,  witnessing  the  diligence  and  success 
of  his  son,  who  was  destined  to  perpetuate  his  father's  name 
and  his  reputation.  He  died  on  August  12,  1848,  one  of  the 
heroes  of  social  science,  and  one  of  the  illustrious  "  men  who 
have  made  themselves." 

"  As  evidence  of  the  singularly  '  matter-of-fact  mind '  of 
George  Stephenson,"  says  S.  C.  Hall,  "  I  have  to  state  this. 
When  the  bill  for  the  formation  of  the  Chester  and  Birken- 
head  Railway  was  passing  through  Parliament,  I  met  Stephen- 
son  at  dinner  with  a  small  party  of  railway  directors.  Hope 
was  giving  scope  to  joy;  the  bill  had  gone  through  the  Com- 
mons. When  the  toast,  '  Success  to  railways  '  was  given,  I 
turned  down  my  glass  and  refused  to  drink  it,  on  the  ground 
that  the  promoters  were  enemies  to  the  common-weal  of  Great 
Britain.  A  poor  pun;  but  Stephenson  began  to  argue  with 
me  as  to  the  fact  that  for  every  common  wheel  put  out  of 
use,  a  wheel  of  infinitely  greater  value  would  be  adopted. 
The  dinner  took  place  at  a  tavern,  now  gone,  close  to  old 
Westminster  Bridge  and  commanding  a  full  view  of  the  arches. 
Their  bill  had  reached  the  House  of  Lords.  I  perpetrated 
another  poor  pun.  '  Ah !  '  I  said,  '  I  see  why  you  patron- 
ize this  house ;  it  is  that  you  may  cultivate  acquaintance 
with  the  Piers  ;  '  upon  which  Stephenson  earnestly  explained 
to  me  that,  '  the  bill  being  sanctioned  by  the  Commons,  it 
was  impossible  that  it  could  be  rejected  by  the  Peers'  A 
play  upon  a  word  would  have  been  as  unintelligible  to  the 
marvellous  old  man  as  a  treatise  on  algebra  to  a  native  of 
Newfoundland.  In  calling  to  memory  George  Stephenson, 
I  picture  a  remarkable  mingling  of  the  snaviter  in  modo  with 
the  fortiter  in  re.  A  ponderous  head  that  seemed  overladen, 
a  body  that  it  appeared  not  easy  to  move  from  one  chair  to 
another, — burdened  with  a  weight  of  thought.  But  his  was 
a  countenance  most  expressive  of  a  kindly  nature ;  it  was 


THE  GREATHEAD  LIFEBOAT  AT  SEA 


HENRY  GREATHEAD. 


HENRY  GREATHEAD.  589 

handsomely  manly,  with  much  of  loving-kindness,  requiring 
but  a  prompter  to  the  exertion  of  sympathy  and  ready  help. 
I  could  fancy  him  striving  to  stop. a  steam-engine  in  full  career, 
that  a  sparrow  might  get  out  of  the  way.  I  knew  little  of 
him  and  nothing  of  his  domestic  relations ;  but  I  am  greatly 
mistaken  in  my  estimate  of  the  man,  if  he  was  other  than  ten- 
der, loving,  and  affectionate,  as  well  as  generous  and  just. 
It  was  my  privilege  to  meet  Robert,  the  son  of  George,  fre- 
quently at  the  hospitable  board  of  the  sculptor  Lough ;  like 
the  great  engineer,  Lough  was  a  "  self-made  man,"  and  not 
ashamed  of  so  honorable  a  distinction.  Sir  Robert  Stephenson 
was,  as  far  as  '  externals '  went,  a  great  improvement  on  the 
father :  a  remarkably  handsome  man  he  was  in  form  and  fea- 
tures ;  of  no  great  conversational  powers,  —  at  all  events,  after 
dinner.  It  was  not  'natural'  that  he  should  have  left  earth 
so  early  as  he  did ;  his  work  was  but  half  done.  Have  these 
two  great  men  bequeathed  to  any  '  son  succeeding,  the  cloak 
the  one  inherited  from  the  other '  ?  These  are  but  weak  rec- 
ollections of  two  great  men.  If  I  had  known  more  of  them, 
as  I  might  have  done,  I  should  have  told  more ;  but  surely 
the  smallest  scrap  of  information  concerning  such  true  heroes 
of  labor,  whose  long  pedigree  is  that  of  toil,  is  of  some 
value." 


HENRY   GREATHEAD. 

[BORN  1757.    DIED  1813.] 

IT  is  the  Briton's  national  boast  that  Britannia  rules  the  waves. 
Whether  or  not  Henry  Greathead  was  that  particular  Briton 
who  invented  the  life-boat  has  been  a  matter  of  some  discussion, 
since  this  credit  is  claimed  on  behalf  of  two  others,  by  name 
Lionel  Lukin  and  William  Wouldhave.  The  first  of  these  two 
was  a  native  of  Dunmow,  an  inland  town  in  the  county  of 
Essex.  He  afterwards  removed  to  London,  established  himself 


59°  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

as  a  coach-builder  in  Long  Acre,  and  then  conceived  the  idea 
of  constructing  a  boat  partially  of  wood  and  partially  of  cork. 
He  enjoyed  the  patronage  of  the  then  Prince  of  Wales,  after- 
wards George  IV. ;  and  in  1784  a  boat  built  by  him,  and  termed 
"  unimergible,"  passed  a  successful  trial  on  the  Thames.  He 
obtained  a  grant  of  letters  patent  in  1785  ;  but  his  scheme  does 
not  appear  to  have  made  any  progress  beyond  that  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Shairp,  of  Bamborough,  hearing  of  his  invention,  sent  him 
an  ordinary  coble  to  be  made  "  unimergible.'  This  was  done. 
The  boat  was  stationed  at  Bamborough ;  and  it  is  said  to  have 
been  instrumental  in  saving  several  lives,  but  whether  or  not 
in  seas  in  which  no  ordinary  boat  could  have  lived  is  unknown. 
The  subject  then  dropped  until  1789,  when  a  ship,  by  name 
the  "  Adventurer,"  of  Newcastle,  stranded  on  the  Herd  Sands 
at  the  entrance  of  the  Tyne.  A  fierce  gale  was  raging,  the  sea 
was  running  mountains  high ;  thousands  of  spectators  were 
present,  and,  though  but  three  hundred  yards  from  the  ill-fated 
ship,  were  unable  to  afford  the  slightest  succor.  One  by  one 
the  crew  dropped  off  from  the  rigging;  mothers  saw  their  sons, 
wives  their  husbands,  drowned  before  their  eyes  and  within  the 
very  sight  of  home.  This  tragic  event  caused  such  an  impres- 
sion that  a  committee  was  formed  in  South  Shields,  and  a  pre- 
mium was  offered  for  the  best  design  of  a  life-boat.  A  great 
number  competed.  .The  final  decision  lay  between  William 
Wouldhave  of  South  Shields,  a  painter,  and  Henry  Greathead 
of  the  same  town,  a  ship-builder ;  and  in  the  end  it  was  given  in 
favor  of  the  latter;  but  the  friends  of  Wouldhave  claim  that 
certain  features  of  his  design  were  adopted  either  by  Greathead 
or  the  committee.  There  does  not,  however,  seem  to  be  much, 
if  any,  proof  of  this ;  and  probably  the  real  facts  are  that  the 
idea  originated  with  Lukin,  who,  however,  was  unable  to  master 
the  practical  details,  as  it  is  said  that  the  sides  of  his  boat  were 
liable  to  be  staved  in,  and  that  the  boat  itself,  though  buoyant, 
lacked  balance ;  that  Wouldhave  improved  upon  the  idea  and 
might  have  been  proclaimed  the  inventor,  had  Greathead  never 
competed ;  and  that  the  latter  alone  was  sufficiently  master  of 
the  theory  and  practice  of  ship-building  to  produce  anything 


HENRY   GREATHEAD.  591 

likely  to  prove  of  permanent  benefit;  and  therefore  to  him 
must  the  honor  be  awarded,  not  as  a  privilege,  but  as  a  right. 
Those,  however,  who  may  feel  inclined  to  inquire  further 
into  the  merits  of  the  case  will  find  every  information  in  the 
book  entitled  "The  History  of  the  Life-boat,"  by  Mr.  Richard 
Lewis,  Secretary  to  the  Royal  National  Life-boat  Institution ; 
and  it  must  sufffce  to  add  that  Wouldhave  afterwards  became 
clerk  to  St.  Hilda's  Church,  South  Shields,  and  died  in  1821, 
at  the  age  of  seventy  years.  A  tombstone  erected  to  his 
memory  bears  the  following  inscription :  — 

"  Sacred  to  the  Memory 

of' 

WILLIAM     WOULDHAVE, 
Who  died  September  28th,  1821, 

Aged  70  years, 
Clerk  of  this  Church, 
And  inventor  of  that  national  blessing  to  mankind  the  life-boat." 

Below  is  the  following  epitaph :  — 

"  Heaven  genius  scientifick  gave 
Surpassing  vulgar  boast,  yet  he  from  soil 
So  rich  no  golden  harvest  reaped,  no  wreathe 
Nor  that  ingrate  a  Palm  ;  unfading  this 
Till  shipwrecks  cease  and  lifeboats  cease  to  save." 

A  model  of  his  invention  can  at  the  present  time  be  seen 
suspended  from  the  chandelier  of  the  church. 

Lionel  Lukin  retired  from  business  to  Hythe,  and  died  in 
1834;  and  fhe  inscription  on  his  tombstone  also  claims  for  him 
the  honor  of  having  invented  the  life-boat. 

Henry  Greathead  was  the  son  of  John  Greathead,  supervisor 
and  comptroller  of  the  salt  duties  in  South  Shields  and  the  ad- 
joining neighborhood,  who  had  married  a  daughter  of  Henry 
Raisden,  a  merchant  formerly  of  York  Buildings,  London. 

There  was  a  large  family,  and  the  subject  of  this  memoir  was 

the  fifth,  and  was  born  at  Richmond,  in  Yorkshire,  on  the  27th 

of  January,  1757.     He  was  the  worthy  son  of  a  worthy  father, 

as  the  latter,  to  quote  the  words  of  the  "  European  Magazine," 

38 


592  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

in  1804,  "was  held  in  great  esteem  for  his  strict  integrity  and 
diligence  during  forty-six  years  that  he  continued  in  the 
situation." 

Henry,  when  a  boy,  it  is  said,  indicated  a  mechanical  turn, 
and  accordingly  was  apprenticed  to  an  eminent  ship-builder  in 
South  Shields.  This  life,  however,  proved  too  monotonous  for 
him.  He  went  to  sea  at  first  in  the  merchant  -service,  but  dur- 
ing the  American  War  served  in  the  Royal  Navy,  and  after- 
wards, in  the  year  1788,  was  shipwrecked  on  the  French  coast 
while  on  a  voyage  to  the  West  Indies.  He  then  returned  to 
South  Shields,  set  up  as  a  ship-builder,  and  in  the  following 
year,  as  before  stated,  gained  the  prize  offered  by  the  South 
Shields  Committee. 

In  1791  the  life-boat  was  for  the  first  time  called  into  active 
requisition.  A  Sunderland  brig  again  stranded  at  the  entrance 
of  the  Tyne ;  but  this  time  succor  was  at  hand.  The  boat  was 
launched,  was  manned  by  a  brave  and  sturdy  crew,  reached  the 
distressed  ship,  and  succeeded  in  saving  those  on  board.  The 
success  of  this  one  boat,  the  first  messenger  of  salvation  con- 
structed by  human  skill,  but  intrusted  to  the  mercy  of  a  divine 
Providence,  encouraged  not  only  other  towns  but  also  other 
countries  to  follow  the  example  of  South  Shields;  for  in  1803 
Greathead  had  built  no  less  than  thirty-one  life-boats,  of  which 
eighteen  were  for  England,  five  for  Scotland,  and  eight  for 
foreign  countries. 

A  year  before  this  he  had  applied  to  Parliament  for  a  national 
reward,  and  a  committee  had  been  appointed  to  take  evidence. 
The  evidence  adduced  proved  two  things,  —  it  proved  that  the 
life-boat  was  a  blessing,  and  that  Greathead  was  not  alone  an 
inventor  but  also  a  man  of  the  greatest  nobility  of  character ; 
it  proved  that  the  life-boat  had  already  been  the  means  of  sav- 
ing two  hundred  lives  at  the  mouth  of  the  Tyne  alone,  —  but  it 
also  proved  that  Greathead  had  taken  no  steps  to  protect  his 
invention,  and  had  never  asked,  much  less  obtained,  more  than 
an  ordinary  trade  price  for  a  single  one  of  these  boats. 

Upon  the  report  of  this  committee  it  was  proposed  to  grant 
him  a  sum  of  £2,000,  and  Wilberforce  eloquently  urged  his 


HENRY   GREATHEAD.  593 

claims.  The  Government,  however,  thought  that  half  this  sum 
would  be  sufficient;  but  upon  its  being  represented  to  them  that 
the  cost  of  his  own  and  his  witnesses'  journey  up  to  and  stay  in 
London  had  amounted  to  nearly  ,£200,  they  consented  to  £1,200, 
and  this  amount  was  unanimously  voted.  The  Trinity  House 
added  one  hundred  guineas,  Lloyd's  subscribed  the  same  amount, 
the  Society  of  Arts  awarded  him  its  gold  medal  together  with 
fifty  guineas,  and  the  Emperor  of  Russia  presented  him  with  a 
diamond  ring. 

On  the  23d  of  November,  1803,  there  occurred  an  episode 
which  showed  that  Greathead  possessed  a  large  amount  of  phys- 
ical courage  in  addition  to  a  high  mental  capacity ;  for  on  that 
day  the  "  Bee  "  of  Shields  put  to'sea,  but  encountering  rough 
weather  the  captain  determined  to  re-enter  the  Tyne.  In  tak- 
ing the  bar  at  the  mouth  the  ship  struck  the  ground,  lost  her 
rudder,  became  unmanageable,  and  finally  drove  on  the  rocks 
known  by  the  name  of  the  "  Black  Middins."  A  crowd  assem- 
bled ;  and  the  same  tragedy  which  had  been  the  primary  cause 
of  life-boats  ever  having  been  instituted  seemed  likely  to  be  re- 
enacted,  for  all  declared  that  it  was  too  rough  for  the  boat  to 
put  out.  Suddenly  Greathead  stepped  forward,  and  offered  to 
go  out  himself  to  the  rescue  if  a  crew  would  volunteer.  His 
words  had  an  electric  effect  on  those  present;  hundreds  stepped 
forward,  and  the  difficulty  now  was  whom  to  choose  without 
offending  the  others.  A  selection,  however,  was  finally  made, 
chiefly  consisting  of  pilots ;  the  life-boat  was  launched,  reached 
the  ship  in  reality  without  any  great  difficulty,  and  rescued 
everybody  on  board  without  the  loss  of  a  single  life. 

After  1804  Greathead's  career  becomes  somewhat  enveloped 
in  mystery  and  wrapped  in  gloom.  It  would  appear  that  he 
embarked  in  certain  speculations,  and  lost  all  the  money  which 
had  been  granted  him  by  Parliament;  for  in  1807  his  name  ap- 
pears in  the  "  Gazette  "  among  the  list  of  bankrupts.  At  that 
period  the  Napoleonic  wars  were  attracting  the  attention  of  the 
whole  country,  and  amidst  the  bustle  of  war  this  benefactor 
would  appear  to  have  been  forgotten.  The  very  date  of  his 
death  is  uncertain,  but  is  believed  to  have  occurred  in  1813; 


594  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

and  it  is  beyond  a  doubt  that  he  was  carried  to  his  last  resting- 
place,  — 

"  Unwept,  unhallowed,  and  unsung." 

This  neglect  has  been  continued ;  for  his  name  is  barely  men- 
tioned in  some  biographical  dictionaries  or  encyclopaedias,  which 
cheerfully  devote  whole  columns  to  the  career  of  a  successful 
clown  or  noted  eccentricity. 

If  this  date  of  his  death  be  correct,  he  would  have  died  at 
the  age  of  fifty-six,  eight  years  before  the  first  life-boat  ever 
built  was  lost.  Some,  however,  built  by  him,  are  not  only  in 
existence,  but  even  in  use.  Redcar  has  the  oldest;  it  bears  the 
date  of  1802;  and  the  sight  of  it  some  eight  years  ago  in- 
spired Viscount  de  Redcliffe  to  write  some  lines.  They  were 
set  to  music  by  Claribel,  and  the  song  was  published  under 
the  title  of  "  The  Life-boat."  No  statue,  even  in  Shields,  has 
been  erected  to  Greathead's  memory.  Well,  perhaps  none  is 
wanted.  Of  Sir  Robert  Peel  it  was  said  that  every  policeman 
was  a  statue  to  his  memory;  and  so  with  equal  truth  it  may 
be  said  that  every  life-boat  is  a  monument  to  the  memory  of 
Henry  Greathead. 

The  good  work  begun  in  1789,  though  it  flagged  for  a  time, 
has  been  carried  on  up  to  the  present  day.  The  British  public 
is  seldom  stingy  where  "  Jack  "  is  concerned ;  and  the  Royal 
National  Life-boat  Institution  alone,  which  is  supported  by  vol- 
untary contributions,  and  of  which  her  most  gracious  Majesty 
is  patroness,  has  no  less  than  two  hundred  and  sixty-nine  sta- 
tions, and  was  the  means  of  saving  eight  hundred  and  fifty-five 
precious  lives  in  one  year. 

It  is  true  that  the  life-boat  in  use  is  somewhat  different  in  con- 
struction from  that  designed  by  Henry  Greathead.  It  now 
carries  sail,  and  is  technically  known  by  the  name  of  "  self- 
righting;  "  but,  nevertheless,  Britain  has  every  reason  to  be 
proud  of  that  son  of  the  Tyne  whose  invention  it  practically 
was,  since  it  is  blessed  by  the  whole  civilized  world,  and  has 
been  the  means  of  preventing  untold  sorrow  and  incalculable 
misery. 


SIR    HUMPHRY    DAVY. 


SIR   HUMPHRY   DAVY.  597 


SIR    HUMPHRY    DAVY. 

[BORN  1778.    DIED  1829.] 

I 

OIR  HUMPHRY  DAVY  was  one  of  those  natural  philoso- 
&•?  phers  who  specially  contributed  to  the  formation  of  modern 
thought.  Without  attaining  to  the  highest  distinction,  his  facul- 
ties were  so  well  balanced,  and  his  discoveries  so  numerous  and 
brilliant,  that  he  may  be  regarded  as  a  representative  man  of 
his  time  and  a  pioneer  of  experimental  philosophy  in  its  latest 
developments.  He  was  born  on  the  I7th  of  December,  1778, 
at  Penzance,  in  Cornwall,  being  the  eldest  son  of  Robert  Davy, 
a  wood-carver. 

The  childhood  of  Humphry  was  spent  under  the  immediate 
care  of  his  parents ;  and  even  in  his  earliest  years  he  gave  evi- 
dence of  the  possession  of  singular  abilities.  The  first  striking 
characteristic  which  manifested  itself,  one  which  distinguished 
him  throughout  life,  was  that  of  quickness  of  apprehension. 

When  a  mere  child  he  entered  the  grammar  school  at  Pen- 
zance, and  remained  there  until  1793.  He  was  then  removed 
to  the  care  of  a  Truro  clergyman;  but  unfortunately  his  oppor- 
tunities for  advanced  education  were  cut  short  by  his  father's 
death  in  the  following  year.  Soon  afterwards  he  became  articled 
to  Mr.  Borlase,  a  surgeon  of  Penzance,  under  whose  tuition, 
though  acquiring  next  to  nothing  of  surgery,  he  gained  that 
decided  taste  for  chemical  pursuits  which  eventually  placed  him 
in  the  front  rank  of  scientific  investigators.  The  passion  for 
experiment  indeed  soon  became  insatiable.  Everything  that 
could  on  any  pretence  or  by  any  contrivance  be  converted 
into  a  piece  of  chemical  apparatus  was  appropriated  without 
scruple.  An  old  French  injecting-syringe  served  him  for  an 
air-pump ;  and  he  used  this  when  preparing  his  first  scientific 


598  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

paper,  "  On  the  Nature  of  Heat  and  Light,"  which  was  pub- 
lished in  1799. 

It  was  a  happy  day  for  Davy  when  he  concentrated  his 
attention  on  nitrous  oxide  gas.  His  own  experiences  under 
its  influence  were  delightful,  and  it  gave  him  a  name  among 
his  countrymen.  He  found  that  by  its  means  he  could  produce 
sleep,  delicious  dreams,  and  involuntary  laughter;  and  it  led 
him  on  to  further  discoveries  in  the  gaseous  department  of 
chemistry.  With  the  new  century  a  new  career  opened  for 
the  aspiring  chemist.  An  offer  of  Count  Rumford,  in  connec- 
tion with  the  Royal  Institution,  enabled  him  to  devote  himself 
entirely  to  science.  There  he  became  famous  for  his  lectures, 
made  his  observations  on  flame,  and  constructed  his  safety-lamp, 
which  has  saved  so  many  lives.  Here,  also,  he  made,  his  first 
experiments  in  electro-chemistry,  and  achieved  the  superb  tri- 
umph of  decomposing  substances  by  electricity.  It  was  a  grand 
thing  to  have  discovered  that  by  which  you  could  literally  take 
a  substance  to  pieces  and  see  the  elements  of  which  it  consists. 
Having  succeeded  in  decomposing  water,  he  tried  the  effect  of 
the  electric  current  on  potash  and  soda ;  and  his  brother  says, 
"  His  delight  when  he  saw  the  minute  shining  globules,  like 
mercury,  burst  through  the  crust  of  potash  and  take  fire  as 
they  reached  the  air,  was  so  great  that  he  could  not  contain  his 
joy,  —  he  actually  bounded  about  the  room  in  ecstatic  delight." 
He  had  proved  that  potash  was  not  a  simple  substance.  He 
had  discovered  potassium  and  sodium.  Thus  the  great  princi- 
ple was  ascertained  that  chemical  affinity  can  be  overcome  by  a 
stronger  power ;  and  Davy  prepared  the  way  for  Faraday,  to 
whom  we  are  most  indebted  for  what  we  know  respecting  the 
intimate  connection  between  electricity  and  chemical  change. 

Agricultural  chemistry  likewise  owes  much  to  Sir  Humphry 
Davy.  While  Baron  Liebig,  of  Darmstadt,  was  laboring  in  the 
same  field  in  Germany,  Davy  was  the  first  in  England  to  teach 
how  the  growth  of  plants  depends  upon  the  chemical  condition 
of  the  soil  wherein  they  are  sown,  how  different  crops  ought 
to  be  planted  in  succession  in  order  not  to  exhaust  the  soil  in 
any  particular  field,  and  what  manure  will  best  restore  to  the 


SIR   HUMPHRY   DAVY.  599 

ground  the  elements  that  the  crops  have  taken  out  of  it.  To 
Sir  Humphry  Davy,  also,  may  be  attributed  in  great  part  the 
knowledge  of  photography;  for  in  1802  he  and  Dr.  Thomas 
Wedgwood  suggested  that  pictures  might  be  taken  by  the  rays 
of  the  sun  acting  chemically  upon  chloride  of  silver,  and  they 
even  succeeded  in  making  some  pictures  in  this  way.  Daguerre 
came  afterwards  and  completed  their  work,  when,  in  1839,  he 
taught  us  how  to  fix  the  pictures  so  that  they  would  remain. 
Another  contribution  of  Sir  Humphry  Davy  to  the  cause  of 
science  resulted  from  his  taking  two  pieces  of  ice  and  making 
them  melt  by  rubbing  them  together,  without  any  warmth  being 
brought  near  them.  In  order  to  be  quite  sure  that  the  heat  did 
not  come  out  of  the  air,  he  made  a  second  experiment  by  plac- 
ing a  piece  of  ice  under  an  air-pump.  When  he  had  drawn  out 
all  the  air  he  set  the  machine  to  work,  so  that  the  ice,  being 
rubbed,  melted  without  any  air  being  present.  Hence  he  came 
to  the  conclusion  that  "  heat  is  a  peculiar  motion,  probably  a  vi- 
bration of  the  corpuscles  of  bodies,  tending  to  separate  them." 

To  an  unwearied  industry  and  zeal  in  research,  Sir  Hum- 
phry Davy  added  accurate  reasoning.  He  was  bold,  ardent 
and  enthusiastic ;  he  commanded  a  wide  horizon,  and  his  keen 
vision  pierced  to  its  utmost  boundary.  He  felt  an  intense 
admiration  of  the  harmony,  order,  and  beauty  of  the  chemistry 
of  nature ;  and  he  expressed  his  feeling  in  language  that  could 
flow  from  none  but  a  mind  of  high  powers  and  fine  sensibil- 
ities. His  discoveries  were  fruitful  in  further  inventions  after 
he  had  passed  away.  His  cylindrical  oil  lamp  alone,  covered 
with  its  cylinder  of  wire  gauze  and  flat  gauze  top,  has  been 
an  invaluable  boon  to  society.  It  has  been  followed  by  many 
improvements  of  which  it  was  the  parent,  —  by  the  "  Geordie  " 
of  George  Stephenson's  safety-lamp,  by  that  of  Museler  in 
Belgium,  and  by  the  ingenious  contrivances  of  Bidder,  Gallo- 
way, Benoit-Damus,  Galibert,  and  Denayrouze.  What  are 
called  the  Bakerian  Lectures  were  the  field  in  which  he  brought 
forward  many  of  his  most  brilliant  discoveries.  The  lecture 
theatre  of  the  Royal  Institution  in  his  day  was  as  frequently 
crowded  by  eager  and  fashionable  audiences,  as  in  more  re- 


600  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

cent  times  they  were  during  the  demonstrations  of  his  gifted 
successor  and  early  helper,  Faraday. 

In  1810  he  was  invited  to  Ireland,  and  received  from  Trinity 
College  the  honorary  degree  of  LL.D.  Two  years  afterwards, 
the  Prince  Regent  at  a  levee  at  Carlton  House  conferred  on 
him  the  honor  of  knighthood.  Soon  after  this  he  gave  up 
his  lectureship  at  the  Royal  Institution  and  married.  From 
this  time  he  devoted  himself  to  travel  and  literary  composition. 
In  1820  he  was  elected  President  of  the  Royal  Society;  but 
though  now  at  the  head  of  science  in  England,  he  did  not 
cease  to  act  as  a  private  soldier  in  her  ranks.  His  Bakerian 
lecture  of  1826,  on  the  relations  of  electrical  changes,  obtained 
for  him  the  society's  royal  medal.  That  year,  however,  his 
health  began  to  fail,  and  he  was  obliged  to  go  to  Italy  to 
recruit.  He  once  more  returned  to  England,  but  was  again 
obliged  to  seek  rest  abroad.  After  spending  some  time  in 
Austria  he  went  to  Rome,  where  he  became  seriously  ill. 
He  desired  to  be  removed  to  Geneva,  but  he  arrived  too  late. 
On  May  29,  1829,  he  died  amid  the  splendors  of  natural  scen- 
ery by  the  lake ;  and  his  mortal  remains  were  laid  in  a  cem- 
etery outside  the  walls  of  the  city.  The  spot  seemed  very 
suitable  as  the  resting-place  of  one  who  explored  with  enthu- 
siasm the  mysteries  of  nature,  but  dwelt  also  with  intense 
pleasure  on  the  marvellous  loveliness  and  phenomena  of  daily 
occurrence. 


MICHAEL    FARADAY. 

[BORN  1791.    DIED  1867.] 

OOME  time  during  the  year  1813, — that  is,  about  two  years 
v~*  before  the  battle  of  Waterloo,  —  a  letter  was  received  by 
Sir  Humphry  Davy,  the  celebrated  Professor  of  Chemistry  at 
the  Royal  Institution,  from  a  young  man,  who  spoke  of  himself 
as  engaged  in  trade,  which  he  detested,  and  anxious  to  pursue 


MICHAEL  FARADAY 
\7  9  I        —      1867 


MICHAEL    FARADAY, 


MICHAEL   FARADAY.  603 

science,  which  he  loved.  Accompanying  the  letter  were  copi- 
ous notes  of  Sir  Humphry's  lectures,  showing  that  the  writer 
was  really  in  earnest  in  wishing  to  engage  in  the  pursuit  of 
science.  At  that  time  the  great  chemist  was  in  the  habit  of 
frequently  calling,  on  his  way  to  the  London  Institution,  at  the 
house  of  a  Mr.  Pepys,  one  of  the  founders  of  that  excellent 
school  of  science  and  literature.  On  one  of  the  accustomed 
visits  the  letter  was  shown  to  Mr.  Pepys,  with  the  information 
that  it  came  from  a  young  man  of  the  name  of  Faraday.  "  He 
has  been  attending  my  lectures,"  added  Davy,  "  and  wants  me 
to  give  him  employment  at  the  Royal  Institution.  What  can  I 
do?"  "Do?"  replied  Pepys;  "put  him  to  wash  bottles.  If 
he  is  good- for  anything,  he  will  do  it  directly;  if  he  refuses,  he 
is  good  for  nothing."  "  No,  no,"  rejoined  Davy ;  "  we  must  try 
him  with  something  better  than  that"  And  the  warm-hearted 
Cornishman,  as  generous  as  he  was  gifted,  wrote  at  once  to  the 
young  man,  and  shortly  afterwards  engaged  him  as  assistant  in 
the  laboratory.  In  the  books  of  the  Institution,  under  date  of 
the  i8th  March,  1813,  is  the  following  entry:  "Resolved,— 
That  Michael  Faraday  be  engaged  to  fill  the  situation  lately 
occupied  by  Mr.  Payne,  on  the  same  terms."  The  terms  were 
25-r.  a  week. 

Thus  began  the  scientific  career  of  the  greatest  experimental 
philosopher  of  modern  times.  He  was  the  son  of  a  journeyman 
blacksmith,  and  was  born  at  Newington  Butts  on  the  22d  of 
September,  1791.  At  thirteen  years  of  age  he  was  apprenticed 
to  a  bookbinder  in  Blandford  Street,  Manchester  Square,  and 
spent  eight  years  in  what  we  must  conclude  was  not  altogether 
a  cordial  endeavor  to  become  a  binder  of  books.  "  I  was  for- 
merly a  bookseller  and  binder,"  he  says  in  a  letter  to  a  valued 
friend,  "  but  am  now  turned  philosopher,  which  happened  thus: 
While  an  apprentice,  I,  for  amusement,  learnt  a  little  chemis- 
try and  other  parts  of  philosophy,  and  felt  an  eager  desire  to 
proceed  in  that  way  further.  After  being  a  journeyman  for  six 
months  under  a  disagreeable  master,  I  gave  up  my  business,  and, 
through  the  interest  of  a  Sir  H.  Davy,  filled  the  situation  of 
chemical  assistant  to  the  Royal  Institution  of  Great  Britain,  in 


604  OUR  GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 

which  office  I  now  remain,  and  where  I  am  constantly  employed 
in  observing  the  works  of  Nature,  and  tracing  the  manner  in 
which  she  directs  the  order  and  arrangement  of  the  world." 
In  another  letter  he  speaks  of  having  learnt  from  the  books 
which  came  under  his  hands  for  binding  the  beginnings  of  his 
philosophy.  Two  that  were  especially  helpful  to  him  were  the 
"  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  "  and  Mrs.  Marcet's  "  Conversations 
on  Chemistry." 

Like  all  who  possess  the  highest  type  of  mind,  he  was  espe- 
cially gifted  with  a  poetic  —  that  is,  a  creative —  imagination.  He 
could,  he  says,  believe  as  easily  in  the  "  Arabian  Nights  "  as  in 
the  "  Encyclopaedia."  But  his  habit  of  rigidly  cross-examining 
facts  saved  him  from  being  carried  away  by  mere  fancies.  He 
began  by  subjecting  the  statements  in  Mrs.  Marcet's  book  to 
the  test  of  what  he  calls  "  little  experiments."  Finding  them  to 
be  true  to  fact,  so  far  as  he  was  capable  of  testing  their  veracity, 
he  was  encouraged  to  go  on,  always  in  the  same  way,  however, 
of  experimenting  in  the  simplest  manner  and  with  the  most 
unpretentious  instruments.  Some  of  his  apparatus,  even  when 
he  had  command  of  the  most  elaborate  appliances,  were  abso- 
lutely astonishing  in  their  simplicity.  In  fact,  one  of  the  dis- 
tinguishing traits  of  a  successful  experimentist  is  the  art  of 
contriving,  and  this  art  Faraday  possessed  to  perfection.  Once 
being  anxious  to  carry  home  a  flower  without  allowing  it  to 
fade,  and  having  no  bouquet-holder  at  hand,  he  asked  for  a 
cork,  and,  taking  a  piece  of  letter-paper,  tied  it  round  the  cork 
in  the  form  of  a  tube,  put  in  water  and  the  flower,  and  thus  bore 
it  safely  away. 

On  his  returning  from  the  continental  journey  which  he  took 
with  Sir  Humphry  Davy,  and  at  the  age  of  twenty-four,  Fara- 
day gave  his  first  public  lecture  "  On  the  Properties  of  Matter." 
For  five  years  after  this  he  went  on  quietly  with  his  duties  at 
the  Institution.  In  1820,  being  then  in  his  thirtieth  year,  he 
published  his  first  paper  in  the  "  Philosophical  Transactions," 
consisting  of  researches  into  certain  new  compounds  of  carbon 
and  chlorine,  etc. 

To  enable  him,  on  his  marriage  in  1821,  to  continue  his  resi- 


MICHAEL   FARADAY.  605 

dence  at  the  Royal  Institution,  the  managers  allowed  him  addi- 
tional rooms.  And  here  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Faraday  lived  for  many 
years.  Although  without  any  children  of  his  own,  his  fondness 
for  children  was  shown  particularly  in  those  ever-memorable 
Christmas  lectures  at  the  Royal  Institution.  On  those  occa- 
sions the  enthusiasm  of  the  lecturer  spread  among  the  audience 
until  the  excitement  of  the  happy  throng  was  almost  uncon- 
trollable. Those  who  were  present  will  never  forget  their 
delight  when  he  showed  them  for  the  first  time  the  decom- 
position of  water  into  its  constituent  gases.  Nor  will  they 
forget  either  what  he  told  them  so  clearly  and  so  pleasantly 
about  the  philosophy  of  combustion  in  his  memorable  lectures 
on  the  chemistry  of  a  candle.  Nowadays,  in  the  presence  of 
the  telephone  and  the  phonograph,  we  are  so  accustomed  to 
scientific  marvels  that  we  scarcely  wonder  at  anything;  but 
in  those  days  it  was  different.  Electricity  was  then,  like  the 
rest  of  us,  in  its  childhood.  Its  developments  proved  it  to  be 
a  giant,  so  to  speak,  among  physical  forces ;  not  only  children, 
but  grown-up  people,  were  amazed  at  its  performances. 

For  a  few  years  after  his  marriage  Faraday  was  much  em- 
ployed in  chemical  analysis. 

In  1825  he  published  a  paper  in  the  "  Philosophical  Trans- 
actions," in  which  he  announced  the  discovery  of  "  benzole  " 
and  other  hydrocarbons.  This  oil,  called  also  "  benzine"  by 
Mitscherlich,  was  obtained  by  Faraday  from  among  the  oils 
condensed  from  oil  gas  at  a  pressure  of  thirty  atmospheres. 
It  can  also  be  obtained  from  the  benzoic  acid,  which  is  in  turn 
made  from  gum  benzoin,  a  sort  of  resin  which  comes  from 
Sumatra.  The  importance  of  benzole  is  that  it  led  to  the 
discovery  of  a  series  of  allied  substances,  one  of  which  is  ani- 
line, the  base  of  several  beautiful  coloring  matters.  The  man- 
ufacture of  aniline  dyes  is  now  quite  a  notable  branch  of 
industry. 

Faraday's  readiness  in  contriving  apparatus  has  been  alluded 
to.  Another  quality,  or  rather  combination  of  qualities,  was 
the  quick  intuitive  glance  which  recognized  a  truth  before  the 
proof  is  complete,  side  by  side  with  the  philosophic  caution 


606  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

which  will  only  accept  a  fact  after  the  demonstration  has  been 
fully  worked  out.  He  never  built  on  the  experiments  of  others 
until  he  had  gone  over  them  himself;  and  it  frequently  hap- 
pened that  during  this  very  process  ideas  flashed  upon  his 
mind  which  had  not  occurred  to  the  former  experimenter, 
and  which  led  to  combinations  or  developments  of  the  most 
important  kind. 

In  the  course  of  his  chemical  researches  he  had  shown 
that  the  old-fashioned  distinction  of  bodies  into  solids,  liquids, 
and  gases  was  merely  a  distinction  of  temperature  and  not 
an  essential  quality  of  the  things  themselves.  So,  in  electri- 
city, he  soon  showed  clearly  that  the  old  distinction  between 
electricity  and  magnetism  was  rather  in  the  modus  operandi 
than  in  the  forces  themselves ;  at  any  rate,  that  there  was  an 
intimate  connection  between  them.  Hence  the  modern  devel- 
opment of  electro-magnetism.  While  carrying  on  experiments 
on  magnets  with  various  metals,  Faraday  discovered  a  very 
remarkable  property  in  the  metal  bismuth.  It  is  well  known 
that  when  steel,  iron,  platinum,  and  crown-glass  are  magne- 
tized or  electrized,  if  nicely  balanced  they  will  place  themselves 
in  the  line  of  the  electric  or  magnetic  current,  pointing  out  its 
direction.  Hence  the  use  of  the  mariner's  compass.  But 
bismuth,  was  found  to  place  itself  across  the  current.  Other 
substances,  such  as  gold,  silver,  copper,  lead,  tin,  sulphur,  etc., 
which  were  known  not  to  be  affected  in  the  same  way  as  iron 
by  the  magnet,  were  found,  like  bismuth,  to  place  themselves 
across  the  current.  To  this  quality  Faraday  gave  the  name  of 
dia-magnetism ;  the  other  quality  'of  lying  along  the  current 
he  called  para-magnetism.  He  even  succeeded  in  magnetizing 
oxygen  ga"s,  and,  in  his  own  opinion,  was  equally  successful  in 
magnetizing,  or  at  least  in  deflecting,  a  ray  of  light.1 

It  was  his  fondness  for  physics  that  led  Faraday  to  abandon 
his  lucrative  employment  as  a  public  analyst.  After  ten  years 
of  married  life,  from  the  very  beginning  of  which  he  had 

1  The  latter  experiment  has  since  been  repeatedly  exhibited.  Professor  Crookes 
showed  it  in  a  most  satisfactory  manner  during  the  meeting  of  the  British  Associa- 
tion, at  Sheffield. 


MICHAEL   FARADAY.  607 

openly  professed  the  simple  but  earnest  Christianity  taught 
him  by  his  parents,  he  began  to  ask  himself  what  was  to  be 
the  real  purpose  of  his  life.  Was  it  to  be  money-making  or 
was  it  to  be  philosophy?  His  very  nature  recoiled  from 
the  idea  of  the  former.  He  would  always  be  able  to  support 
himself  honorably;  why  should  he  aim  at  wealth?  He  ac- 
cordingly gave  it  up,  and  devoted  himself  entirely  to  inde- 
pendent research. 

Thus  his  place  is  among  the  noblest  of  public  benefactors, 
not  in  the  sense  of  assisting  in  great  philanthropic  movements, 
but  in  his  contributions  to  the  sum  of  human  knowledge.  He 
lived  to  question  Nature,  to  make  her  yield  her  secrets.  He 
made  her  confess  that  the  old-world  distinctions  of  scientific 
phraseology  were  no  distinctions  at  all.  He  overturned  the 
old-fashioned  jargons  about  the  boundaries  of  science,  about 
"fixed  air"  and  "poles"  and  "caloric,"  and  demonstrated 
that  what  had  hitherto  been  called  the  forces  of  nature  were 
in  reality  various  modes  of  "  force."  In  fact,  he  went  very 
near  showing  that  force  was  only  another  name  for  Nature 
herself. 

The  correlation  of  the  physical  forces  is  now  an  established 
principle  of  scientific  knowledge.  Tyndall,  Joule,  Grove, 
Mayer,  Crookes,  and  many  others,  are  going  forward  in  the 
van  of  the  movement  which  is  enlarging  the  "  boundaries  of 
science."  Others  had  opened  or  battered  down  gates,  but  it 
was  Faraday  who  overthrew  the  time-honored  walls  of  the  old 
fortress  of  ignorance  formerly  called  Philosophy. 

In  his  early  days  scientific  investigators  seemed  to  dwell 
in  various  regions  rigidly  kept  apart.  Mechanics,  physics, 
chemistry,  were  studied  separately,  as  if  the  realms  of  Nature 
were  a  triarchy  of  distinct  governments,  each  having  its  own 
peculiar  code  of  laws,  its  language,  and  Its  customs.  Faraday 
abolished  all  this.  He  taught  by  experiment  and  proved  by 
demonstrable  facts  that  variety  exists  only  in  the  outcome  of 
natural  events,  —  that  the  soul,  the  inmost'  moving  force,  is 
unity.  Such  was  the  lofty  ideal  which  Faraday  set  up  in 

place  of  the  old  idols. 
39 


6o8  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

We  have  in  this  rapid  glance  seen  something  of  the  charac- 
ter of  the  philosopher.  We  will  conclude  with  a  brief  notice 
of  the  man.  He  belonged  to  a  body  of  Christians  among 
whom  he  officiated  as  an  elder  in  the  church,  and  took  his 
turn  among  others  in  preaching.  His  sermons  were  of  the 
plainest  kind,  entirely  destitute  of  that  bold  speculative  spirit 
which  characterized  his  lectures  on  science ;  for  it  was  his  be- 
lief that  the  heart  is  swayed  by  a  power  to  which  logic  and 
science  bear  no  relation. 

By  degrees  his  wonderful  memory  faded,  and  his  health 
broke  down,  though  not  suddenly  or  painfully.  He  never 
quite  got  over  the  illness  he  had  in  1865.  He  then  gave  up 
work  entirely  and  forever.  With  the  passing  of  the  silent  hours 
his  life  quietly  ebbed  away  on  the  25th  of  August,  1867. 

Not  the  least  useful  lesson  in  the  life  of  this  upright,  noble- 
minded,  and  lovable  man  was  the  perfect  union  of  the  sweet 
domestic  virtues  with  the  mighty  faculties  of  a  transcendent 
intellect.  It  gives  honor  to  the  claims  of  a  homely  life  be- 
side the  demands  of  what  are  called  the  higher  faculties,  and 
goes  far  to  break  down  the  jealous  partitions  which  less  per- 
fect natures  have  striven  to  put  up  between  homeliness  and 
intellect. 

Qther  lessons  of  his  life  are  perhaps  equally  striking,  each  to 
the  individual  reader.  With  his  scientific  and  philosophical 
discoveries  the  world  is  mainly  familiar.  The  benefits  to  man- 
kind which  have  arisen  and  shall  still  arise  out  of  his  researches 
are  numberless.  But  his  character  as  a  man  has  not  been 
without  its  weight.  It  has  left  its  mark  upon  those  who  knew 
him,  as  they  all  testify.  And  notwithstanding  some  failures, 
so  fully  were  the  noblest  qualities  united  in  him,  that  Nature, 
into  whose  innermost  heart  he  delved  the  deepest,  — 

"  Nature  might  stand  up, 
And  say  to  all  the  world,  'This  was  a  man.'" 


"DAVID  BREWSTERJp 


SIR    DAVID    BREWSTER. 


SIR   DAVID    BREWSTER.  6ll 


SIR    DAVID    BREWSTER. 

IUOKN  1781.     DIED  1868.] 

OIR  DAVID  BREWSTER'S  claim  to  distinction  rests  chiefly 
**-^  on  his  course  of  original  discover}'  in  the  science  of  op- 
tics. This  throws  an  interest  over  his  whole  life.  As  a  child 
he  enjoyed  great  advantages,  his  father  being  a  teacher  of  high 
repute  and  rector  of  the  grammar  school  at  Jedburgh.  In  his 
boyhood  the  bias  nature  had  given  him  for  physical  pursuits 
was  fostered  by  his  intimacy  with  a  self-taught  mathemati- 
cian, astronomer,  and  philosopher,  James  Veitch,  of  Inchbonny. 
This  neighbor  enjoyed  much  local  fame,  and  was  particularly 
skilful  in  making  telescopes.  His  university  career  began  at  the 
early  age  of  twelve,  when  he  was  sent  to  Edinburgh  and  destined 
for  the  clerical  profession.  He  finished  his  theological  course 
and  was  even  licensed  to  preach  ;  but  nervousness  and  a  decided 
preference  for  scientific  pursuits  prevented  him  from  entering 
on  active  service  in  the  kirk.  Brougham,  his  fellow-student,  in- 
duced him  to  study  the  inflection  of  light,  and  this  was  the 
beginning  of  his  optical  researches.  His  name  must  be  espe- 
cially honored  by  every  class  of  the  great  public,  because  his 
labors  had  so  immediate  and  important  a  bearing  on  social  re- 
quirements. Honors  poured  in  upon  him  rapidly  from  his  own 
country  and  France  in  consequence  of  his  inquiries  respect- 
ing (i)  The  laws  of  polarization  of  light  by  reflection  and  refrac- 
tion ;  (2)  The  discovery  of  the  polarizing*  structure  induced  by 
heat  and  pressure;  (3)  The  discovery  of  crystals  with  two  axes 
of  double  refraction ;  (4)  The  laws  of  metallic  reflection ;  and 
(5)  Experiments  on  the  absorption  of  light.  Those  who  were 
best  qualified  to  estimate  the  value  of  his  discoveries  were  not 
slow  to  acknowledge  them  ;  and  the  principal  were  the  discovery 
of  the  connection  between  the  refractive  index  of  the  polarizing 


6l2  OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

angle,  that  of  biaxal  crystals,  and  of  the  production  of  double 
refraction  by  irregular  heat.  The  non-scientific  public  highly 
appreciated  his  invention,  in  1816,  of  the  kaleidoscope,  —  a  toy 
equally  elegant  and  philosophical,  for  which  there  was  for  some 
time  so  large  a  demand  in  England  and  America  that  the  sup- 
ply could  not  keep  pace  with  it.  He  did  not  actually  invent  the 
stereoscope,  which  is  due  to  Wheatstone,  but  he  so  improved  it 
by  suggesting  the  use  of  lenses  to  unite  the  dissimilar  pictures, 
that  the  lenticular  stereoscope,  now  exclusively  in  use,  may  be 
said  to  have  had  him  for  its  inventor. 

But  the  optical  researches  of  Brewster  had  a  far  more  impor- 
tant result  in  the  vast  improvement  of  lighthouse  apparatus. 
Fresnel  was  laboring  at  the  same  time  with  himself  for  the  like 
object  in  France,  and  was  the  first  to  put  the  improvements  con- 
templated into  operation.  But  it  is  certain  that  Brewster  de- 
scribed the  dioptric  contrivance  in  1812,  and  pressed  its  use  on 
those  in  authority  in  1820.  It  was  finally  introduced  into  Eng- 
lish lighthouses  by  his  earnest  efforts ;  and  his  memory  justly 
deserves  the  tribute  paid  to  it  by  his  successor  as  head  of  the 
University  of  Edinburgh,  who  said,  "  Every  lighthouse  that  burns 
round  the  shore  of  the  British  Empire  is  a  shining  witness  to  the 
usefulness  of  Brewster's  life."  It  was  not,  however,  till  1827  that 
he  published  his  "  New  System  of  Illumination  for  Lighthouses," 
and  offered  his  services  to  the  lighthouse  boards  of  the  United 
Kingdom.  Then,  in  1833,  experiments  made  in  Scotland  from 
Gallon  Hill  to  Gulan  Hill,  a  distance  of  12^/2  miles,  proved  that 
"  one  polyzonal  lens,  with  an  argand  burner  of  four  concentric 
circles,  gave  a  light  equal  to  nine  parabolic  reflectors,  each  car- 
rying a  single  argand  burner."  From  that  time  the  illumination 
of  lighthouses  has  been  steadily  advancing.  Colored  lights  are 
now  often  used,  but  they  require  more  distinction.  In  the  new 
Lizard  lights  the  magneto-electric  light  is  that  of  Faraday,  the 
machine  is  designed  by  Professor  Holmes,  and  they  are  worked 
by  Ericson's  caloric  engines. 

Brewster  displayed  marvellous  activity  as  a  literary  man,  par- 
ticularly in  scientific  literature.  At  the  age  of  twenty  he  became 
editor  of  the  "  Edinburgh  Magazine,"  and  in  1808  of  the  "  Edin- 


SIR    DAVID    BREWSTER.  613 

burgh  Encyclopaedia."  He  contributed  largely  to  the  "  Ency- 
clopaedia Britannica."  He  edited,  with  Jameson,  the  "  Edinburgh 
Journal  of  Science,"  contributed  seventy-five  articles  to  the 
"  North  British  Review,"  and  wrote  for  the  Transactions  of  va- 
rious learned  societies  between  three  and  four  hundred  papers. 
His  "Life  of  Newton"  occupied  him  twenty  years.  His  interest- 
ing "  Letters  on  Natural  Magic,"  addressed  to  Sir  Walter  Scott, 
and  his  "  Martyrs  of  Science  ;  or,  Lives  of  Galileo,  Tycho  Brahe, 
and  Kepler,"  were  widely  read  and  highly  valued  by  the  public. 
He,  with  Herschel  and  Babbage,  was  foremost  in  establishing 
the  British  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  of  which 
the  first  meeting  was  held  in  York  in  1831.  He  was  elected 
President  of  the  British  Association  in  1849,  an^  was  chosen  one 
of  the  eight  foreign  associates  of  the  Institute  of  France  in  suc- 
cession to  Berzelius. 

Sir  David  Brewster's  speculations  concerning  the  plurality  of 
worlds  are  familiar  to  the  reading  public  in  consequence  of  his 
having  supported  and  extended  the  already  popular  views  of 
Dr.  Chalmers  on  the  same  subject,  and  also  through  his  hav- 
ing been  opposed  by  Dr.  Whewell,  the  late  Master  of  Trinity 
College,  and  recently  by  Mr.  Proctor.  Sir  David's  work  was 
entitled  "  More  Worlds  than  One;  or,  The  Creed  of  the  Phi- 
losopher and  the  Hope  of  the  Christian."  In  this  volume  he 
combated  with  great  force  and  equal  ardor  the  narrow  and  de- 
grading notion  of  Dr.  Whewell,  that  the  innumerable  suns  which 
we  call  stars,  with  their  planetary  systems,  are  all  rude  and  chaotic 
masses,  devoid  of  mental  and  moral  life.  He  believed,  rather, 
and  maintained  the  high  probability  of  each  being  a  centre  of 
humanity,  or  of  life  analogous  with  that  of  human  life.  To  the 
Christian  this  idea  will  commend  itself  all  the  more  because  he 
is  taught  to  believe  that  even  the  unseen  world  around  him  (and 
much  more  the  visible  universe)  is  teeming  with  intelligences  of 
various  orders.  The  arguments,  it  may  be  added,  of  Sir  John 
Herschel  in  his  "  Outlines  of  Astronomy,"  and  of  Professor  Mil- 
ler in  his  "  Romance  of  Astronomy,"  corroborate  those  of  Sir 
David  Brewster,  and  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  wherever  there 
are  worlds  there  is,  has  been,  or  will  be,  life  varying  in  its  forms 


614  OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

and   manifestations  according  to  the  various  circumstances  in 
which  it  is  engendered  and  sustained. 

The  bent  of  his  genius,  according  to  the  last  edition  of  the 
"  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,"  was  not  specially  mathematical. 
In  this  respect  he  differed  from  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  on  whose  life 
and  manuscripts  he  dwelt  so  long  and  lovingly.  He  took  the 
greatest  pains  to  observe  accurately  and  to  classify  facts,  but  he 
was  not  much  given  to  theorizing.  Some  of  the  laws  which  he 
established,  and  which  have  been  already  referred  to,  were  of 
prime  importance,  but  they  were  generally  the  result  of  repeated 
experiments.  He  did  not  contribute  much  towards  the  ultimate 
explanation  of  the  phenomena  which  he  passed  under  review ; 
and  it  may  be  mentioned  that  although  he  did  not  absolutely 
maintain  the  corpuscular  theory  to  the  end  of  his  days,  he  did 
not,  on  the  other  hand,  adopt  explicitly  the  undulatory  theory 
of  light.  But,  in  saying  this,  it  is  not  meant  to  detract  from  his 
genius,  but  to  point  out  one  of  its  characteristics.  "  His  scientific 
glory,"  said  Professor  Forbes  (and  few  will  be  inclined  to  dis- 
sent from  the  verdict),  "  is  different  in  kind  from  that  of  Young 
and  Fresnel ;  but  the  discoverer  of  the  law  of  polarization,  of 
biaxal  crystals,  of  optical  mineralogy,  and  of  double  refraction 
by  compression,  will  always  occupy  a  foremost  rank  in  the  intel- 
lectual history  of  the  age."  It  was  a  small  distinction  for  him 
to  receive  the  honor  of  knighthood,  as  he  did  in  1831,  and  the 
decoration  of  the  Guelphic  order  of  Hanover.  It  was  the  talent 
he  displayed  in  his  discoveries  and  numerous  scientific  essays 
that  really  ennobled  him.  In  1838  his  merits  were  recognized 
and  rewarded  in  his  appointment  to  be  principal  of  the  colleges 
of  St.  Salvator  and  St.  Leonard,  St.  Andrews,  and  still  more 
when,  in  1859,  he  consented  to  be  the  head  of  the  University  of 
Edinburgh,  and  continued  to  discharge  its  duties  diligently  till 
within  a  few  months  of  his  death  in  1868. 


SIR    ROWLAND    HILL 


SIR   ROWLAND    HILL.  617 


SIR    ROWLAND    HILL. 

[BORN  1795.    DIED  1879.] 

HPHERE  is,  perhaps,  no  department  of  social  progress  which 
-*-  has  made  more  rapid  and  decided  headway  than  that  which 
belongs  to  the  art  of  travel  and  the  conveyance  of  messages. 
The  ease  and  luxury  of  a  modern  railway  journey  seem  to  have 
thrown  back  the  formidable  discomforts  of  the  old  stage-coach 
into  remote  antiquity.  Yet  it  is  less  than  a  century  since  old 
travellers  would  make  their  wills  before  they  journeyed  from 
London  to  York,  and  nerved  themselves  to  the  undertaking  as 
men  who  had  to  face  a  week  of  untold  peril.  Peril  surrounded 
them  from  beginning  to  end,  —  peril  from  coachmen  too  ready  to 
accept  the  proffered  glass,  —  peril  by  stress  of  weather,  storm, 
and  snowdrift,  —  and  last,  though  by  no  means  least,  peril  from 
highway  robbers.  At  any  moment  of  the  still  and  ghostly 
night  a  glittering  weapon  might  flash  through  the  frail  window, 
and  the  once  famous  formula,  "  Your  money  or  your  life,"  ring 
in  the  drowsy  ears  of  the  half-conscious  traveller.  In  1779  the 
Chester  mail  was  robbed  in  the  City  Road.  Now  and  then,  in 
the  darkness  and  confusion,  a  passenger  would  get  tied  neck 
and  heels,  and  pitched  into  the  basket  in  mistake  for  the  robber. 
Of  course  robbery  was  comparatively  easy  when  the  average 
speed  of  travelling  in  England  was  under  five  miles  an  hour, 
and  in  the  case  of  the  letter  post  three  miles  and  a  half.  A 
coach  that  left  London  for  Bath  in  the  afternoon  was  looked 
upon  as  a  "  highflyer  "  if  it  reached  its  destination  by  the  follow- 
ing morning.  Before  1784,  when  Mr.  Palmer,  of  the  Bristol 
Theatre,  introduced  the  mail-coach  system,  the  manner  and 
means,  and  of  course  the  pace,  of  locomotion  were  most  in- 
credibly slow. 

Mediaeval  illuminations  represent  Apollo  —  of  course  in  con- 
temporary costume —  leisurely  climbing  the  celestial  heights  in 


618  OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

a  good  solidly  built  "  plaustrum,"  drawn  by  a  team  of  most 
deliberate  heavy-heeled  dobbins ;  no  doubt  representing  the 
mediaeval  idea  of  a  gentlemanlike  pace.  In  downright  seri- 
ousness it  was  the  pace  with  which  our  forefathers  were 
calmly  content.  And  not  only  so,  but  some  of  them  violently 
protested  against  its  increase.  So  late  as  1797,  when  Mr. 
Palmer  proposed  further  improvements  on  his  system  with  re- 
gard to  the  rate  of  travelling,  a  Mr.  Hodgson,  one  of  the  post- 
office  authorities,  opposed  the  alteration  as  worthless  because 
founded  on  an  impossibility.  The  "  impossibility "  consisted 
in  supposing  that  the  Bath  letters  could  be  brought  to  Lon- 
don in  sixteen  or  eighteen  hours.  Mr.  Palmer's  plan,  however, 
was  adopted ;  and  the  result  was  that  five  hundred  places  ob- 
tained a  daily  delivery  which  before  had  only  had  one  three 
times  a  week.  For  twenty  years  previously  the  revenue  from 
the  postal  system  had  averaged  ;£  150,000  a  year.  In  ten  years  it 
increased  to  .£400,000.  In  ten  years  more  it  reached  £700,000, 
and  in  twenty  years  more,  .£1,500,000.  Whoever  would  like  to 
consult  the  history  of  this  movement  will  find  it  in  the  Parlia- 
mentary Papers  for  1807-8  and  1813.  In  1838  a  plan  calculated 
not  only  further  to  increase  the  utility  of  this  branch  of  the  pub- 
lic service,  but  to  revolutionize  the  whole  management,  was  pri- 
vately submitted  to  the  Government  and  afterwards  published 
as  a  pamphlet.  This  production  —  an  ingenious,  profound, 
and  convincing  argument — was  the  work  of  the  truly  world- 
wide benefactor,  Rowland  Hill,  who  was  then  forty-two  years  of 
age,  and  had  been  employed  for  almost  the  whole  of  his  life, 
from  a  mere  lad,  in  the  business  of  a  schoolmaster. 

He  was  born  on  December  3,  1795,  at  Kidderminster,  "  quite 
unexpectedly,"  says  his  biographer,  his  birth  being  prema- 
ture. He  was  the  third  son  of  Mr.  Thomas  Hill,  afterwards  a 
noted  schoolmaster  in  Birmingham.  From  the  extreme  deli- 
cacy of  his  health  as  an  infant,  it  was  only  by  the  devoted  and 
constant  attention  of  his  mother  that  the  child's  life  was  pro- 
longed. Sir  Isaac  Newton  was  another  instance  of  a  life  begun 
thus  prematurely,  yet  extended  beyond  the  usual  length. 

Rowland  Hill's  earliest  amusement  was  counting  up  figures 


SIR    ROWLAND    HILL.  619 

aloud  as  he  lay  on  his  couch  beside  the  fire,  until  he  had 
reached  a  total  of  hundreds  of  thousands.  Thus  early  did  he 
show  his  natural  aptitude  for  computation.  As  his  strength 
increased  he  was  able  to  attend  his  father's  school,- where  he 
made  extraordinary  progress,  particularly  in  mathematics.  At 
quite  an  early  age  he  assisted  in  teaching  these  subjects  both 
in  his  father's  school  and  elsewhere. 

During  the  next  ten  years  Hill  gave  occasional  lectures  at 
the  Philosophical  Institution  in  Birmingham,  usually  on  subjects 
connected  with  science  or  mathematics.  One  of  his  discourses 
was  on  the  "  Advantage  of  Systematic  Arrangement,"  and  his 
own  character  was  an  illustration  of  the  value  of  what  he  taught. 
He  enforced  the  love  of  order  and  method  upon  all  his  pupils 
until  the  practice  of  these  valuable  qualities  became  a  second 
nature. 

The  school  of  the  elder  Hill  at  Hazlewood,  in  the  Hagley 
Road,  Birmingham,  was  famous  throughout  England ;  and  it 
fully  deserved  its  reputation,  for  it  was  conducted  on  the  noblest 
and  soundest  principles.  One  rule  was  never  to  use  corporal 
punishment,  —  a  practice  then  common  in  schools  of  every 
class.  In  place  of  it  a  system  of  self-government,  superin- 
tended by  the  masters,  was  found  to  be  perfectly  efficient  and 
satisfactory.  Father  and  sons  worked  together  with  the  most 
perfect  cordiality  and  unanimity,  and  the  result  in  twenty  years 
was  an  establishment  consisting  of  more  than  two  hundred 
persons. 

In  1827  Rowland  removed  to  Bruce  Castle,  Tottenham,  hav- 
ing in  that  year  married  the  daughter  of  Mr.  Pearson,  of  Grais- 
ley,  near  Wolverhampton.  She  was  a  lady  whose  tastes  were 
precisely  such  as  enabled  her  to  be  a  most  valuable  assistant  to 
her  husband.  Throughout  his  various  wearisome  investigations 
she  steadily  worked  as  his  amanuensis,  analyzing  and  compil- 
ing statistics,  and  writing  early  and  late  from  his  dictation. 

In  1833  he  retired  from  the  school  on  account  of  broken 
health,  and  passed  some  months  on  the  Continent.  The  next 
year  we  find  him  in  England  as  the  secretary  of  the  new  Co- 
lonial Exploration  Association.  The  power  of  organization 


620  OUR    GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

formerly  shown  in  the  successful  management  of  a  large  school, 
now  proved  itself  equal  to  the  rapid  development  of  the  asso- 
ciation. In  1836  a  colonial  government  was  established,  and 
in  1841  a  policy  inaugurated  that  laid  the  foundation  of  the 
future  prosperity  of  the  colony. 

We  now  arrive  at  that  period  in  the  life  of  this  gigantic 
worker,  this  genius,  —  if  genius,  as  is  said  by  some,  means  a 
tremendous  capacity  for  hard  work,  —  when  to  do  him  justice 
we  should  require  a  volume,  and  not  the  few  brief  lines  we  have 
now  at  our  disposal.  The  deficiencies  of  the  old  postal  system 
have  already  been  glanced  at,  but  it  would  be  sufficiently  near 
the  truth  to  say  that  the  so-called  system  was  simply  a  mass  of 
anomaly  and  mismanagement.  Delay  in  transmission  of  letters 
was  one  of  its  smallest  inconveniences.  The  rates  charged  for 
postage  were  enormous.  Double  letters,  —  that  is,  two  sheets  of 
paper,  —  however  thin  or  however  weighty,  were  charged  double 
postage.  The  charge  from  London  to  Birmingham  was  nine- 
pence.  Stamps  and  envelopes  were  of  course  as  yet  unknown. 
The  smallest  note  from  a  distant  part  of  the  country  was 
charged  is.  6d.  and  upwards,  a  packet  from  Edinburgh  to 
London  costing  three  times  as  much  as  would  now  be  charged 
for  a  substantial  letter  to  the  Antipodes. 

One  thing  that  added  greatly  to  the  burden  of  these  charges 
was  the  usage  of  society.  It  was  considered  to  be  against 
good  taste  to  prepay  a  letter,  so  that  it  was  within  the  means  of 
any  one  to  victimize  the  person  whom  he  selected  as  his  corre- 
spondent. Many  a  poor  cottager  had  to  go  without  a  meal  to 
pay  for  a  letter  which  he  dare  not  refuse,  lest  it  should  contain 
news  of  vital  importance  to  him.  Many  people  avoided  the 
pressure  of  the  postage  tax  by  availing  themselves  of  what 
were  called  "  franks."  "  Franks  "  were  the  signatures  of  mem- 
bers of  Parliament,  which  being  placed  on  the  front  of  a  letter 
made  it  post  free.  Of  course  this  prerogative  of  Parliament 
rendered  its  exercise  anything  but  a  sinecure.  Members  were 
pestered  for  signatures.  Nobody  thought  it  mean  to  beg  for 
franks,  and  it  is  even  affirmed  that  certain  members  made 
money  of  their  privilege  by  selling  their  autographs  at  so 


SIR   ROWLAND    HILL.  621 

much  a  dozen.  All  that  was  necessary  was  to  write  the  name 
on  a  sheet  of  paper  in  such  a  way  that  when  folded  for  trans- 
mission it  should  appear  beside  the  address.  Before  the  cus- 
tom finally  disappeared,  however,  the  law  insisted  that  the  whole 
address  should  be  in  the  franker's  handwriting  and  the  date  sub- 
joined. But  besides  this  mode  of  evading  payment  there  were 
numerous  others.  The  contraband  trade  was  enormous.  All 
kinds  of  means  were  made  use  of  to  evade  the  law.  Parcels  of 
letters  were  sent  by  coach.  Drivers,  guards,  carriers,  pedestrians, 
carried  their  pockets  stuffed  with  them.  In  some  places  not 
more  than  one  letter  in  fifty  passed  through  the  post-office. 
In  short,  public  morality  on  the  question  of  postages  was 
thoroughly  unsound. 

Such  was  the  state  of  things  when  the  pamphlet  on  "  Post- 
Office  Reform,  its  Importance  and  Practicability  "  made  its  ap- 
pearance. The  main  features  of  the  plan  were:  (l)  A  great 
diminution  in  the  rates  of  postage ;  (2)  Increased  speed  in  the 
delivery  of  letters;  and  (3)  More  frequent  opportunity  for  their 
despatch. 

Mr.  Hill  proposed  that  the  rate  of  postage  should  be  uni- 
form, and  charged  according  to  weight,  and  that  payment  should 
be  made  in  advance.  The  means  of  doing  so  by  stamps  was 
not  suggested  in  the  first  edition  of  the  pamphlet,  and  Mr.  Hill 
said  the  idea  did  not  originate  with  him.  In  a  later  issue  the 
matter  is  thus  referred  to :  "  Perhaps  the  difficulties  might  be 
obviated  by  using  a  bit  of  paper  just  large  enough  to  bear  the 
stamp,  and  covered  at  the  back  with  a  glutinous  wash,  which 
by  applying  a  little  moisture  might  be  attached  to  the  back  of 
the  letter." 

The  justice  and  feasibility  of  a  uniform  rate  rested  on  the 
fact  which  Mr.  Hill  made  out  from  his  inquiry,  that  the  actual 
cost  of  conveying  letters  from  London  to  Edinburgh,  when 
divided  among  the  letters  carried,  did  not  exceed  one  penny 
for  thirty-six  letters;  that  is,  taking  the  average  weight  of  a 
letter  at  a  quarter  of  an  ounce,  the  cost  of  its  transmission  was 
not  more  than  the  ninth  part  of  a  farthing.  And  the  post- 
office  charged  is.  6d.,  and  yet  could  not  make  it  pay! 


622  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

The  scheme  startled  not  merely  the  officials  but  the  public 
generally.  Yet  the  more  it  was  looked  into,  the  more  practi- 
cable it  became.  Five  petitions  in  its  favor  reached  Parliament 
in  the  very  year  it  was  propounded.  In  1838  more  than  three 
hundred  found  their  way  to  the  Legislature.  In  the  following 
year  two  thousand  petitions  were  presented  to  both  Houses. 
The  Duke  of  Richmond,  ex-Postmaster-General,  advised  the 
adoption  of  the  plan,  and  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer 
provided  a  bill  to  enable  the  Treasury  to  put  it  into  execution. 
In  September,  1839,  Mr.  Hill  was  made  superintendent  to 
carry  his  system  into  effect.  On  the  5th  of  December,  as  a 
preparatory  measure  to  accustom  the  department  to  the  mode 
of  charging  by  weight,  the  inland  rates  were  reduced  to  a  uni- 
form charge  of  <\d.  per  half-ounce,  and  a  scale  was  based  on 
the  half-ounce,  ascending  to  sixteen  ounces.  No  long  trial  was 
necessary.  The  temporary  measure  only  lasted  about  one 
month.  On  the  loth  of  January,  1840,  a  uniform  rate  of  id. 
per  half-ounce  was  adopted,  and  the  system  with  which  the 
name  of  Rowland  Hill  is  evermore  associated  became  a  matter 
of  history. 

Penny  postage  is  of  course  the  great  boon  for  which  the 
name  of  benefactor  is  added  to  that  of  the  inventor.  But  his 
beneficial  services  do  not  end  with  this  great  work.  The  pres- 
ent money-order  system  was  also  his  suggestion ;  and  many 
minor  improvements  of  both  departments,  adding  greatly  to 
the  efficiency  of  the  service,  emanated  from  his  fertile  and  crea- 
tive brain.  In  1839  the  whole  amount  of  money-orders  was 
only  .£313,000.  In  1863  the  amount  was  £16,493,793. 

The  honor  of  knighthood,  £33,360  in  public  gifts,  a  pension 
of  £2,000  a  year,  and  a  statue  in  Birmingham  were  among 
the  recognitions  of  the  vast  benefits  which  his  great  and  self- 
denying  labors  had  conferred  upon  the  community.  But  his 
services  were  more  than  even  national.  The  whole  civilized 
world  has  benefited  by  his  inventions  and  suggestions.  His 
fame,  therefore,  rests  with  the  world  at  large.  "And  though 
men,"  says  the  "Edinburgh  Review,"1  "who  have  risked  their 

1  Vol.  cxx.  p.  93. 


SIR    CHARLES    LYELL. 


SIR   CHARLES    LYELL.  625 

lives  on  fields  of  battle,  or  borne  the  whole  burden  of  public 
affairs,  may  have  claims  to  more  stately  rewards,  we  know  of 
no  man  who  has  conferred  a  greater  amount  of  practical  benefit 
upon  his  fellow-creatures  than  the  unassuming  author  of  '  Post- 
age Reform.'"  In  1863  Sir  Rowland  Hill  was  compelled 
through  declining  health  to  seek  temporary  repose.  The  fol- 
lowing year  he  resigned  his  office  entirely;  and  so  completely 
did  he  withdraw  from  public  life  that  by  many  persons  he  was 
supposed  to  have  died  years  ago.  But  he  still  quietly  lived 
on  in  his  home  at  Hampstead.  The  latest  of  the  many  personal 
honors  that  his  grateful  countrymen  were  only  too  anxious  to 
press  upon  him  was  the  freedom  of  the  City  of  London.  In 
August,  1879,  his  infirmity,  which  had  long  rendered  him  un- 
able to  support  an  ordinary  conversation,  increased  so  rapidly 
as  to  convince  himself  and  his  family  that  his  end  was  near.  It 
came  on  the  27th.  when  he  died  quite  peacefully,  as  it  were 
weary  and  worn  out  with  his  long  life  of  service.  On  Septem- 
ber 4,  at  noon,  he  was  buried  in  Westminster  Abbey. 


SIR  CHARLES    LYELL. 

[BORN  1797.    DIED  1875.] 

/CHARLES  LYELL  was  the  eldest  son  of  a  botanist  of 
*•*  more  than  a  local  reputation.  His  early  education  was 
received  at  Midhurst,  in  Sussex,  from  whence  he  passed  to 
Exeter  College,  Oxford,  taking  his  degree  of  B.A.  in  1819, 
and  that  of  M.A.  in  1821.  Here  he  had  the  opportunity  of 
attending  the  lectures  of  Dr.  Buckland,  Professor  of  Geology, 
and  thus  acquired  a  taste  for  the  science  of  which  he  after- 
wards became  so  conspicuous  and  distinguished  a  cultivator. 
He  was,  however,  destined  for  the  bar,  and  came  to  London  to 
pursue  the  study  of  the  law.  He  commenced  practice  as  a 
barrister;  but  having  an  independent  fortune  he  relinquished 


626  OUR    GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

that  profession  and  devoted  himself  to  the  study  of  geology,  thus 
maturing  the  inclination  which  had  been  previously  awakened 
and  fostered  by  the  above  learned  professor  in  his  early  college 
days,  depriving  the  legal  profession  of  an  advocate  of  whose 
ability  it  is  impossible  to  speculate,  and  giving  to  the  world  of 
science  one  of  its  greatest  geologists. 

In  1824  he  travelled  for  scientific  purposes  in  Switzerland, 
France,  Germany,  and  Italy.  His  earliest  geological  papers 
were  contributed  in  the  following  year  to  the  "  Transactions  " 
of  the  newly  founded  Geological  Society,  of  which  he  was 
one  of  the  first  members,  and  to  the  "  Edinburgh  Journal  of 
Science ;  "  and  from  the  commencement  until  a  late  period 
of  his  life,  he  enriched  the  "  Transactions  "  with  his  valuable 
contributions.  One  of  the  earliest  papers  was  published  in 
the  second  volume  of  those  "  Transactions,"  and  was  entitled 
"  On  a  Recent  Formation  of  Fresh-Water  Limestone  in  For- 
farshire,  and  on  some  Recent  Deposits  of  Fresh-Water  Marl; 
with  a  Comparison  of  Recent  with  Ancient  Fresh- Water  For- 
mations." 

Many  similar  works  appeared  in  "  Geological  Transactions," 
and  in  this  year  he  also  wrote  an  article  in  the  "  Quarterly 
Review,"  on  "  Scrope's  Geology  of  Central  France."  These 
papers  all  indicated  powers  of  observation  and  comparison  ot 
a  high  order,  and  prepared  the  geological  world  for  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  work  on  which,  above  all  others,  the  reputation 
of  Sir  Charles  Lyell  mainly  rests.  How  profound  and  fruitful 
his  studies  and  speculations  must  have  been  during  this  period, 
when  he  gave  to  the  world  his  "  Principles  of  Geology,"  — 
the  first  volume  in  1830,  the  second  in  1833  !  Such,  however, 
was  the  impression  produced  by  this  work,  that  second  edi- 
tions of  the  first  and  second  volumes  were  required  before  the 
third  volume  appeared.  A  third  edition  of  the  whole  work  of 
four  volumes  appeared  in  May,  1834,  a  fourth  edition  in  1835, 
and  a  fifth  in  1837. 

This  book  marks  an  epoch  in  the  progress  of  the  science. 
Lyell's  aim  was  to  establish  principles,  to  lay  a  solid  and  phil- 
osophical basis  for  the  science;  and  this  by  showing  that  a 


SIR   CHARLES    LYELL.  627 

true  and  sufficient  explanation  of  the  phenomena  of  the  past 
is  furnished  by  the  belief  in  the  uniform  action  of  forces  now 
in  operation.  This  view,  which  had  been  set  forth  by  Hutton, 
has  been  called  Uniformitarianism,  and  stands  opposed  to  the 
then  prevailing  doctrine  of  Catastrophism.  For  some  time 
it  had  to  pass  through  the  usual  ordeal  of  theological  alarm 
and  denunciation,  but  has  now  long  been  accepted  and  taken 
its  place  as  part  of  the  general  inheritance  of  knowledge.  The 
work  was  in  1838  separated  into  two  parts;  the  portion  relating 
to  the  ancient  history  of  the  earth  being  published  by  itself, 
under  the  title  of  "  Elements  of  Geology."  This  title  was 
changed  in  1851  into  "Manual  of  Elementary  Geology,"  but 
the  original  title  was  restored  to  the  sixth  edition  published 
in  1865.  Of  the  "Principles,"  eleven  editions  appeared  during 
the  author's  lifetime,  and  a  twelfth  was  in  preparation  when 
he  died.  Both  works  have  been  translated  into  several  Euro- 
pean languages. 

The  author's  account  in  his  ninth  edition  of  the  "  Principles," 
to  use  his  own  language,  "  treats  of  such  portions  of  the  econ- 
omy of  existing  nature,  animate  and  inanimate,  as  are  illus- 
trative of  geology,  so  as  to  comprise  an  investigation  of  the 
permanent  effects  of  causes  now  in  action,  which  may  serve 
as  records  to  after  ages  of  the  present  condition  of  the  globe 
and  its  inhabitants.  Such  effects  are  the  enduring  monuments 
of  the  ever-varying  state  of  the  physical  geography  of  the 
globe,  —  the  lasting  signs  of  its  destruction  and  renovation, 
and  the  memorials  of  the  equally  fluctuating  condition  of  the 
organic  world.  They  may  be  regarded  as  a  symbolical  lan- 
guage in  which'  the  earth's  autobiography  is  written.  In  the 
manual  of  '  Elementary  Geology,'  on  the  other  hand,  I  have 
treated  briefly  of  the  component  materials  of  the  earth's  crust, 
their  arrangement  and  relative  position,  and  their  organic 
contents,  which,  when  deciphered  by  aid  of  the  key  supplied 
by  the  study  of  the  modern  changes  above  alluded  to,  reveal 
to  us  the  annals  of  a  grand  succession  of  past  events,  —  a  se- 
ries of  revolutions  which  the  solid  exterior  of  the  globe  and 
its  living  inhabitants  have  experienced  in  times  antecedent 


628  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

to  the  creation  of  man."  It  was  undoubtedly  the  "  Principles  " 
that  called  the  attention  of  geologists  to  the  necessity  of  re- 
garding the  past  changes  of  the  earth's  surface  as  resulting 
from  causes  now  in  operation.  It  met,  however,  with  great 
opposition  from  those  who  imagined  that  it  interfered  with 
the  authoritative  declaration  of  Scripture.  Sir  Charles  Lyell's 
own  university  was  most  decided  in  its  opposition  to  the  new 
views,  although  its  able  professor  of  geology  was  not  so.  His 
view  is  acknowledged  as  consistent  with  a  philosophical  pur- 
suit of  geological  science. 

From  a  very  early  period  in  the  history  of  human  intelli- 
gence a  notion  has  been  entertained  that  the  various  forms  oi 
animals  and  plants  which  inhabit  or  have  inhabited  the  surface 
of  the  earth  are  modifications  of  one  common  form,  and  that 
the  more  complicated  have  grown  out  of  or  been  developed 
from  the  simpler  forms  of  animal  and  vegetable  life.  Sir 
Charles  Lyell  opposed  this  view,  and  denied  that  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  strata  there  is  any  evidence  that  the  lowest  forms 
of  animals  were  created  first.  The  only  fact  he  admits  favor- 
ing the  hypothesis  of  development  is  the  late  appearance  of 
man  on  the  surface  of  the  earth.  Regarding  negative  evidence 
as  no  support  to  any  theory  of  progress,  he  sees  no  reasonable 
objection  to  the  anticipation  that  the  highest  forms  of  mamma- 
lia, except  man,  should  be  found  in  the  lowest  Silurian  rocks. 
This  is  still  occupying  the  minds  of  the  most  distinguished 
palaeontologists  of  the  present  day. 

Sir  Charles  Lyell  twice  visited  the  United  States,  and  deliv- 
ered courses  of  lectures  before  the  scientific  institutions  of 
this  country.  His  chief  aim,  however,  was  to  examine  the 
geology  of  the  New  World.  His  papers  on  this  'subject  are 
very  numerous  and  important,  and  were  published  in  the  "  Pro- 
ceedings and  Transactions  of  the  Geological  Society." 

In  addition  to  these  papers,  Sir  Charles  published  two  works 
giving  an  account  of  his  travels  in  America.  The  first  ap- 
peared in  1841,  and  was  entitled  "Travels  in  North  America," 
with  geological  observations  on  the  United  States,  Canada,  and 
Nova  Scotia,  two  volumes,  octavo,  with  a  geological  map. 


SIR   CHARLES    LYELL.  629 

These  volumes  contain  an  account  of  personal  incident  as  well 
as  popular  descriptions  of  geological  districts  visited.-  In  this 
volume  he  describes  the  educational  institutions  of  America, 
and  strongly  insists  on  their  superiority  to  our  own  similar 
institutions,  on  account  of  the  extensive  cultivation  of  the  nat- 
ural sciences.  In  his  second  journey  he  visited  the  Southern 
States,  and  records  in  his  work  his  personal  adventures,  to- 
gether with  an  account  of  the  geology  of  the  districts  through 
which  he  passed.  This  work  is  entitled  "  A  Second  Visit  to 
the  United  States,"  published  in  1845. 

Mr.  Darwin's  famous  book  on  "  The  Origin  of  Species " 
having  appeared  in  1859,  Sir  Charles  Lyell,  then  past  sixty, 
gave  a  searching  investigation  to  the  new  views  of  the  very 
early  existence  of  man  upon  the  earth,  and  in  his  important 
work  entitled  "The  Antiquity  of  Man"  (1863),  announced  his 
full  adhesion  to  them.  They  were  also  embodied  in  the  next 
(tenth)  edition  of  his  "  Principles."  Besides  these  great  works 
he  contributed  many  scientific  memoirs  to  the  "  Proceedings 
and  Transactions  of  the  Geological  Society,"  the  "  Reports  of 
the  British  Association,"  of  which  he  was  an  active  mem- 
ber and  office-holder,  and  "  Silliman's  Journal  of  American 
Science." 

The  world  gave  him  honors  in  abundance  in  recognition  of 
his  services  to  science.  He  received  from  her  Majesty  the 
honor  of  knighthood  in  1848,  and  in  1853  had  the  gratification 
of  having  conferred  on  him  the  honorary  degree  of  D.C.L. 
by  his  own  university  of  Oxford.  He  was  raised,  in  1864,  on 
the  recommendation  of  the  then  Premier,  Lord  Palmerston, 
to  a  baronetcy,  which  became  extinct  by  his  decease.  He 
was  a  deputy-lieutenant  for  his  native  county  of  Forfarshire. 
He  was  president  of  the  British  Association  at  the  meeting 
at  Bath  in  1864,  when  he  delivered  an  elaborate  address  on 
the  antiquity  of  man. 

Sir  Charles  married,  in  1832,  the  eldest  daughter  of  Mr. 
Leonard  Horner.  She  died  in  1873,  leaving  no  children.  Sir 
Charles  died  in  London,  February  22,  1875. 

In    compliance   with  a    memorial    signed    by  fellows  of  the 


630  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Royal  Geological  and  Linnaean  Societies,  his  remains  were 
interred  in  Westminster  Abbey.  The  funeral  took  place  on 
the  2 /th,  and  was  attended  by  the  leading  men  of  science  and 
many  persons  of  distinction. 


HUGH     MILLER. 

[BORN  1802.    DIED  1856.] 

TTUGH  MILLER  was  emphatically  a  man  of  purpose.  In 
-*-  •*•  his  earliest  boyhood  he  gave  signs  of  that  indomitable 
will  which  in  later  years  was  to  lead  him  to  success.  His  father, 
best  known  to  us  through  Hugh's  sketch  of  him  in  "  Schools 
and  Schoolmasters,"  was  a  sailor.  Descended  from  a  long  line 
of  seafaring  men,  the  elder  Hugh  Miller  was  a  man  of  the  ut- 
most regularity  of  temperament,  opposing  a  serene  front  to 
misfortune,  and  enjoying  in  an  equable  iashion  such  pleasures 
as  fell  to  his  share. 

Steadfast  in  resolution  and  aim,  fearless  in  the  interest  of 
others,  utterly  forgetful  of  self  in  all  the  relations  of  life,  he 
could  not  but  bequeath  a  noble  heritage  to  his  son.  From  his 
mother's  side  Hugh  Miller  was  to  receive  the  passionate,  imagi- 
native, and  emotional  characteristics  of  the  Highland  Scots. 
Mrs.  Miller  was  a  firm  believer  in  second  sight ;  and  when,  after 
the  death  of  her  husband  at  sea,  she  devoted  herself  to  the  task 
of  supporting  her  three  children  by  her  needle,  her  fancy  found 
rich  field  for  its  exercise. 

Her  chief  occupation  was  the  making  of  shrouds ;  and  when 
Hugh  was  between  five  and  six  years  old  she  would  draw  his 
attention  to  the  raps  on  her  work-table,  or  the  winding-sheet  in 
her  candle,  as  signs  of  another  death  to  come  in  the  neighbor- 
hood. Agitated  and  upset  by  her  weird  narratives,  little  Hugh 
would  creep  to  his  bed  and  hide  his  head  under  the  clothes  to 


f/SHES  Of  THE  OLD  RED    SANDSTONE 


HUGH     MILLER. 


HUGH    MILLER.  633 

escape  the  monotonous  click,  click,  of  his  mother's  needle,  or  the 
recurrence  of  the  ghostly  visitants  expected  by  her. 

The  eldest  of  the  little  family,  Hugh  was  born  at  Cromarty, 
in  the  North  of  Scotland,  upon  the  loth  of  October,  1802.  He 
was  five  years  of  age  when  his  father  died  during  a  storm  at  sea; 
and  in  after  life  he  constantly  recurred  to  a  vision  which  he 
deemed  supernatural,  and  which  appeared  to  him  upon  the  eve 
of  his  father's  loss. 

After  his  father's  death  he  owed  his  education  to  his  mother's 
brothers,  who  are  known  to  us  in  his  book  as  Uncle  James  and 
Uncle  Sandy.  Both  must  have  been  superior  men.  Living 
close  at  hand,  they  took  charge  of  the  two  little  girls,  and  pro- 
posed to  devote  their  best  consideration  to  Hugh's  prospects. 
In  accordance  with  their  advice  he  was  sent,  at  the  age  of  six,  to  a 
dame  school ;  and  when  he  had  discovered,  to  use  his  own  words, 
that  "  the  art  of  reading  is  the  art  of  finding  stories  in  books,'' 
his  life  became  a  joy  to  him.  He  spent  all  his  spare  time  in 
devouring  such  books  as  came  in  his  way,  his  prime  favorites 
being  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress  "  and  Pope's' "  Homer." 

A  year  later,  Hugh  was  launched  into  the  parish  school,  and 
found  himself  a  unit  among  one  hundred  and  twenty  others. 
His  school  career  reflects  no  credit  upon  him.  He  was  set  down 
by  the  masters  as  a  dunce,  not  because  he  could  not,  but  because 
he  would  not,  learn  in  a  regular  way.  His  reading  meanwhile 
bore  fruit;  he  charmed  his  fellow-learners  with  tales  drawn  from 
history  or  imagination,  and  while  his  unlearned  tasks  elicited 
from  his  masters  that  he  was  a  dullard,  the  lads  who  were  his 
contemporaries  recognized  him  to  be  far  superior  to  them  in 
imagination  and  intellect.  In  this  estimate  his  uncles  joined, 
and  in  spite  of  the  master's  denunciations  held  fast  to  their  idea 
that  he  would  one  day  prove  himself  worthy  of  their  faith  in 
him.  His  Uncle  Sandy  particularly,  observing  his  interest  in 
natural  history,  did  all  in  his  power  to  form  his  taste. 

When  he  was  twelve  years  old,  an  adventure  to  which  he  re- 
fers in  more  than  one  of  his  works  befell  him.  Going  with  one 
of  his  schoolfellows,  a  lad  younger  than  himself,  to  explore  a 
cave  on  the  shore,  they  were  overtaken  by  the  tide,  and  only 


634  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

after  an  interval  of  terrible  anxiety  were  rescued  by  some  fisher- 
men. Somewhat  later,  a  visit  to  his  relations  in  the  Highlands 
of  Scotland  increased  his  interest  in  nature,  and  he  amused  him- 
self during  his  leisure  hours  in  a  somewhat  original  way.  Draw- 
ing maps  of  the  country  in  the  sand,  he  arranged  colored  shells 
in  the  different  compartments  to  represent  inhabitants,  and,  as 
king  of  his  imaginary  realm,  designed  roads,  canals,  and  harbors, 
proceeding  to  govern  in  accordance  with  the  views  he  had 
gathered  from  books. 

Returning  to  Cromarty  to  finish  his  school  career,  his  favorite 
game  consisted  in  heading  a  party  of  his  schoolfellows  and 
spending  a  day  in  exploring  the  caverns  below  the  precipices 
of  Cromarty.  His  school  record  continued  disastrous.  Apply 
himself  he  would  not,  and  for  weeks  together  he  played  truant. 
His  little  sisters  died  suddenly,  and  he  overheard  his  mother 
regretting  that  it  had  not  rather  pleased  God  to  take  her  boy. 
For  a  moment  he  was  moved,  but  the  impression  soon  faded 
away.  He  himself  relates  that  at  this  time  he  was  an  atheist; 
and  when  after  a  final  contest  with  the  "  dominie "  he  left 
school,  it  was  with  a  reputation  far  from  enviable. 

In  1819  Mrs.  Miller  married  again,  and  Hugh  awoke  to  the 
perception  that  he  must  choose  a  career.  From  early  boyhood 
he  had  indulged  in  writing,  and  a  manuscript  magazine  named 
the  "  Village  Observer  "  was  carried  on  by  him  up  to  the  Febru- 
ary of  the  year  following  this  event.  In  March,  1820,  he  was 
apprenticed  to  a  stone-mason  in  the  village,  and  a  life  little 
congenial  to  his  tastes  began.  His  master  was  his  mother's 
brother-in-law,  old  David  Wright,  a  character  in  his  way,  but  with 
little  sympathy  for  his  imaginative  nephew.  The  toil  in  the 
stone-mason's  yard  had  a  sobering  effect  upon  Hugh's  character ; 
his  strong  will  came  into  force.  He  determined,  having  chosen 
his  career,  to  excel  in  it ;  and,  after  a  few  months'  awkwardness, 
astonished  his  master  and  fellow-apprentices  by  becoming  one 
of  the  most  expert  hewers  in  the  village. 

Recognized  as  an  expert  workman,  Hugh  Miller  became  at- 
tached to  a  regular  squad  of  masons ;  and  we  find  him  pursuing 
his  calling  in  various  parts  of  the  country,  occupying  his  leisure 


HUGH    MILLER.  635 

in  writing  long  letters  to  his  friend  William  Ross,  a  painter's 
apprentice,  whose  genius  was  second  only  to  his  own. 

Under  the  pressure  of  work  unsuited  to  his  nature  Hugh 
Miller's  health  gave  way,  and  it  was  a  fortunate  thing  that  the 
expiration  of  his  apprenticeship  on  the  nth  of  November,  1822, 
allowed  of  his  return  home.  He  was  now  a  journeyman ;  and 
his  first  work  was  a  stone  house,  still  in  existence,  built  for  an 
aunt  whose  means  scarcely  allowed  of  her  paying  rent.  He  had 
difficulty  at  first  in  obtaining  employment,  and  in  the  interval 
wrote  many  poems,  which  he  sent  to  his  friend  William  Ross. 
Work,  when  at  last  it  was  offered,  took  him  to  the  West  of  Ross- 
shire  ;  but  there  an  accident,  in  which  his  foot  was  crushed,  for 
some  weeks  disabled  him. 

In  1823  he  first  visited  Edinburgh,  where  he  soon  obtained 
employment,  and  remaining  in  the  neighborhood  at  Niddrie  he 
worked  at  his  trade  for  two  seasons,  returning  to  Cromarty  with 
health  so  impaired  from  the  hardships  of  his  life  that  he  antici- 
pated death.  His  lungs  had  been  permanently  injured  by  ex- 
posure and  hard  living,  but  his  suffering  could  not  quench  his 
spirit.  Letters  and  poems  of  this  period  of  his  life  attest  the 
increasing  power  of  his  genius,  and  that  wonderful  love  of  na- 
ture which  was  to  assist  in  his  later  development.  Religious  diffi- 
culties met  him  as  his  intellectual  culture  ripened,  and  his  letters 
to  his  friend  tell  of  many  a  struggle  and  battle  before  he  could 
write  truly  of  a  "change  of  heart  that  had  brought  him  peace." 

In  1825  Hugh  Miller  visited  Inverness  in  search  of  work.  In 
this  quest  he  was  unsuccessful ;  but  forming  during  his  visit  the 
acquaintance  of  the  editor  of  the  "  Inverness  Courier  "  he  was  in- 
duced to  allow  some  of  his  poems  to  be  printed.  In  spite  of 
the  welcome  his  verses  received,  and  the  gratifying  comments 
of  the  critics,  Hugh  himself  decided  that  his  poetic  faculty  was 
not  worthy  of  further  cultivation,  and  determined  to  devote 
himself  to  prose.  In  this  year  he  lost  by  death  his  two  uncles, 
who  had  stood  to  him  in  the  relation  of  parents,  and  also  his 
great  friend  William  Ross. 

In  1831  Hugh  Miller  met  Miss  Eraser,  who  afterwards  became 
his  wife.  To  her  influence  we  are  mainly  indebted  for  his  deter- 


636  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

mination  to  devote  all  his  leisure  to  prose  works  and  to  the  investi- 
gation of  scientific  theories.  Encouraged  by  her  he  proceeded 
with  his  first  book.  And  anxious  above  all  else  to  provide  a 
fitting  home  for  his  promised  wife,  he  sought  employment 
which  might  raise  him  socially.  He  was  offered  a  clerkship  in 
a  bank,  and  was  soon  temporarily  established  in  the  Commer- 
cial Bank  at  Linlithgow.  While  giving  much  of  his  attention  to 
the  details  of  a  business  which  was  essentially  new  to  him, 
Hugh  Miller  completed  and  corrected  the  proofs  of  his  first 
prose  work,  "  Scenes  and  Legends  in  the  North  of  Scotland." 
Its  success  was  his  introduction  to  society.  He  was  now  to  be 
sought  out  and  encouraged ;  and  his  prospects  improving  he  was 
able,  upon  the  /th  of  January,  1837,  to  marry  the  lady  he  had 
so  long  loved. 

The  newly  married  couple  settled  in  Cromarty,  the  wife  add- 
ing something  to  their  small  income  by  taking  pupils.  The  first 
sorrow  that  clouded  their  happiness  was  the  death  of  a  little 
daughter  who  was  inexpressibly  dear  to  her  father.  The  head- 
stone for  her  grave  was  chiselled  by  his  hand,  and  was  the  last 
occasion  of  his  practising  his  early  handicraft. 

Hugh  Miller  for  a  while  threw  himself  ardently  into  literature, 
taking  up  the  questions  of  the  day  with  great  earnestness,  and 
advocating  reforms  in  the  leading  newspapers;  but  the  quiet 
years  as  they  succeeded  each  other  increased  the  attraction 
which  science  had  ever  possessed  for  him.  His  books  had 
already  attracted  the  attention  of  men  of  intellect,  and  a  chapter 
in  "  Scenes  and  Legends"  upon  geological  formations  was  the 
occasion  of  more  than  one  letter  from  scientific  men.  In  1838 
we  find  him  in  correspondence  with  Sir  William  Murchison  and 
Mr.  Agassiz  as  to  the  strata  of  the  Old  Red  Sandstone,  and  from 
that  time  till  his  death  his  scientific  researches  were  unwearying. 

At  this  time  the  ecclesiastical  questions  which  agitated  Scot- 
land aroused  the  deepest  interest  in  Hugh  Miller's  mind,  and  in 
1840  he  settled  in  Edinburgh  to  undertake  the  editorship  of 
the  "  Witness,'*  a  paper  started  on  behalf  of  the  Non-Intrusion 
party  in  the  Church  of  Scotland.  In  this  paper  some  of  his 
first  geological  articles  were  published.  They  were  afterwards 


HUGH    MILLER.  637 

collected  under  the  title  of  "  The  Old  Red  Sandstone."  Con- 
taining as  they  did  an  accurate  account  of  his  discoveries  in 
palaeontology,  they  aroused  the  attention  not  only  of  the  literary 
world  but  of  the  entire  public ;  and  the  enthusiasm  which  was 
already  felt  for  his  moral  character  as  the  champion  of  the  Na- 
tional Church  was  increased  by  the  fresh  evidence  of  his  genius 
which  every  number  of  his  paper  revealed. 

The  immense  labor  imposed  upon  Hugh  Miller  before  the 
final  disruption  of  the  Church  so  seriously  impaired  his  health 
that  for  a  long  time  he  was  forced  to  give  up  all  literary  effort. 
When  he  resumed  his  pen  it  was  once  more  to  labor  indefati- 
gably  in  the  interests  of  the  Free  Church,  with  which  his  name 
is  inseparably  connected. 

In  1848  he  visited  England,  and  upon  his  return  published 
his  "  First  Impressions  of  England  and  her  People."  The 
good  which  Hugh  Miller's  works  have  done  for  the  cause  of 
science  is  inestimable ;  for  his  genius  not  only  developed  new 
truths,  but  overcame  old  errors  and  established,  above  all,  the 
independence  of  science.  "  The  Testimony  of  the  Rocks,"  his 
last  book,  was  an  attempt  to  reconcile  the  truths  of  geology 
with  the  facts  of  the  Creation  as  given  in  Genesis. 

In  1850  Hugh  Miller  was  elected  secretary  to  the  Geological 
Department  of  the  British  Association  for  the  Advancement  of 
Science,  an  office  which  he  filled  until  his  death. 

When  we  reflect  what  an  immense  amount  of  work  was 
crowded  into  those  years  of  the  great  Scottish  geologist's  life, 
it  is  little  surprising  that  serious  symptoms  of  brain  disease  re- 
vealed themselves.  Terrible  visions  haunted  his  highly  strung 
mind ;  fear,  unnatural  and  hideous,  took  possession  of  him,  and 
under  the  terrible  influence  of  a  distraught  fancy  he  imagined 
himself  pursued  by  demons.  In  a  moment  of  paroxysmal  mania  he 
died  by  his  own  hand  during  the  night  of  December  23-24,  1856. 

This  sad  ending  could  not  spoil  the  nobility  of  a  life  devoted 
to  the  cause  of  humanity  and  science.  In  history  Hugh  Miller 
will  be  honored  as  the  true  gentleman ;  and  in  the  annals  of  dis- 
tinguished men  few  can  be  found  more  worthy  a  nation's  esteem 
than  the  "  Stone-mason  of  Cromarty." 


638  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 


SIR   CHARLES    WHEATSTONE. 

[BORN  1802.    DIED  1875.] 

A  S  several  of  the  more  brilliant  and  widely  useful  discov- 
-*••*-  cries  and  inventions  have  been  unappreciated  by  the 
general  public  for  a  long  period  after  they  were  first  notified 
to  them,  and  as  by  far  the  greater  portion  of  these  scientific 
results  have  proved  unremunerative  to  their  authors  for  many 
years  after  they  originated,  it  is  very  satisfactory  to  learn 
that  the  subject  of  this  memoir  was  one  of  those  fortunate 
individuals  who  not  only  gained  many  honors,  but  earned 
good  if  not  excellent  pecuniary  reward  for  his  splendid 
scientific  labors  within  a  reasonable  time  after  they  were 
completed. 

This  eminent  physicist  and  inventor  was  born  in  1802  at 
Gloucester,  where  his  father  was  a  music-seller.  The  son, 
having  been  brought  up  as  a  musical-instrument  maker,  set  up 
business  for  himself  in  London  in  1823.  Possessing,  however,  a 
fertile  inventive  mind,  and  having  made  many  important  re- 
searches and  experiments  of  a  scientific  character,  he  notified 
some  valuable  discoveries  in  his  "  New  Experiments  of  Sound," 
which  were  published  in  that  year.  In  1832  he  sent  a  paper 
to  the  Royal  Society,  "  On  the  Acoustic  Figures  of  Vibrating 
Surfaces,"  and  was  appointed,  two  years  afterwards,  Professor 
of  Experimental  Philosophy  at  King's  College  in  London.  At 
this  establishment  he  completed  his  researches  upon  the  ve- 
locity of  electric  transmission  by  means  of  revolving  mirrors, 
an  experimental  system  which  has  been  used  with  great 
success  by  other  persons  in  other  branches  of  physical  science. 
Wheatstone  also  pointed  out  the  possibility  of  distinguishing 
metals  according  to  the  spectrum  character  of  the  electric 
spark  passed  between  them ;  and  an  apparatus  was  invented 


41 


SIR    CHARLES    WHEATSTONE. 


SIR   CHARLES    WHEATSTONE.  641 

by  him  for  the  measurement  of  electrical  resistance.  He  also 
invented  the  polar  clock,  for  ascertaining  the  time  by  the 
position  of  the  plane  of  polarization  of  the  light  of  the  polar 
sky,  and  the  catoptric  stereoscope. 

But  by  far  the  greatest  service  he  rendered  for  the  good  of 
mankind,  and  one  for  which  he  has  attained  a  world-wide  fame, 
is  his  practical  application  of  the  electric  telegraph  for  public 
purposes ;  and  this,  it  is  claimed,  Wheatstone,  with  the  mechan- 
ical assistance  of  a  Mr.  Cooke,  was  the  first  to  introduce  for 
practical  purposes. 

Consequently,  in  May,  1837,  they  took  out  a  patent  in  their 
joint  names  "  for  improvements  in  giving  signals  and  sounding 
alarums  in  distant  places  by  means  of  electric  currents  trans- 
mitted through  metallic  circuits."  Other  patents  were  after- 
wards obtained  by  them,  either  individually  or  in  co-operation, 
for  various  improvements  upon  their  first  method ;  but  the 
great  principles  of  this  remain  unchanged,  and  form  an  essen- 
tial part  of  nearly  all  the  later  telegraphic  instruments  of 
other  inventors.  Immediately  after  the  date  of  their  first  pat- 
ent, wires  were  laid  down  on  the  London  and  Northwestern 
Railway  between  Euston  Square  and  Camden  Town  stations, 
a  mile  and  a  quarter  apart,  and  messages  were  effectually  sent 
between  them.  The  first  telegraph  used  for  public  purposes 
was  fixed  in  1838  on  the  London  and  Blackwall  line.  In  the 
following  year  permission  was  given  to  use  the  apparatus  on 
the  Great  Western  Railway  as  far  as  West  Drayton,  which  was 
only  thirteen  miles,  and  it  was  afterwards  extended  five  miles 
beyond  this  to  Slough.  In  these  trials,  as  well  as  in  the  one 
on  the  London  and  Blackwall  Railway,  the  wires  were  enclosed 
in  iron  tubes  placed  on  the  ground.  Notwithstanding  the 
successful  experiments  of  the  telegraph,  the  directors  of  the 
Great  Western  Railway  were  opposed  to  wires  being  placed 
between  Paddington  station  and  Bristol,  while  the  general  pub- 
lic, who  were  allowed  to  transmit  messages  by  this  instrument, 
availed  themselves  but  little  of  the  advantage  for  some  years 
after  it  was  first  introduced.  An  event,  however,  occurred  in 
1845,  which  at  once  manifested  its  great  utility  and  heightened 


642  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

its  estimation  wonderfully.  In  that  year  it  was  used  to  send 
a  message  to  the  London  police  to  arrest  Tawell  on  a  charge 
of  murder,  who  was  travelling  by  an  express  train  to  escape 
being  captured. 

The  Electric  Telegraph  Company  purchased  their  earlier  pat- 
ents for  ;£  1 20,000,  and  their  system  was  quickly  extended  over 
Europe  by  this  and  other  rival  companies  ;  and  shortly  afterwards 
no  railway  was  considered  complete  without  a  good  supply  of 
telegraph  wires.  It  is  now  considered  indispensable  that  every 
important  city  and  town  shall  be  provided  with  means  of  tele- 
graphic communication  with  other  cities  and  towns,  and  that 
the  wires  shall  be  laid  down  on  all  new  trunk  and  branch  lines. 
The  charge  for  the  transmission  of  intelligence  has  also  been 
considerably  reduced,  and  messages  are  sent  on  an  immense 
variety  of  subjects.  It  is  interesting  to  know  that,  according 
to  returns  published  in  1879,  the  entire  length  of  telegraphic 
lines  over  the  globe  was  then  no  less  than  431,761  miles, 
which  are  divided  among  the  several  continents  as  follows : 
namely,  Africa,  7,999;  America,  127,980;  Asia,  24,760;  Aus- 
tralasia, 36,692 ;  Europe,  234,330  miles.  The  total  length  of 
wireage  is  about  three  times  this  length.  It  was  also  estimated 
that  there  were  about  230,089  miles  of  cable  laid  down.  But 
even  these  figures  have  been  enormously  increased. 

Frequent  controversies  have  arisen  as  to  who  should  rightly 
be  considered  the  first  contriver  of  the  electric  telegraph  for 
popular  use.  Two  names  have  been  prominently  mentioned 
to  dispute  Wheatstone's  claim  to  this  distinction ;  namely, 
Steinheil,  of  Munich,  and  Morse,  of  New  York.  It  appears, 
according  to  a  statement  of  M.  Arago  to  the  French  Academy 
of  Sciences,  that  the  telegraph  of  the  former  was  in  use  on 
he  1 9th  of  July,  1837,  for  a  distance  of  seven  miles,  being  the 
same  month  in  which  Wheatstone  and  Cooke  tested  their  ap- 
paratus on  the  London  and  Northwestern  Railway. 

The  reason,  however,  which  gives  Wheatstone  a  priority  of 
claim  over  Steinheil  beyond  the  fact  of  his  patent  being  ob- 
tained in  the  preceding  month  and  being  based  upon  many 
previously  good  successful  experiments,  is  that  until  August, 


SIR   CHARLES    WHEATSTONE.  643 

1838,  Stcinheil  published  no  description  of  his  means  of  tele- 
graphic communication,  which  he  altered  and  improved  in 
the  interval;  and  the  only  information  we  have  of  his  instru- 
ment describes  its  improved  form.  His  apparatus,  however, 
was  a  very  meritorious  one;  for  in  addition  to  its  other  ex- 
cellent qualities,  Steinheil  was  the  first  to  employ  the  earth 
to  complete  the  circuit.  But  in  its  mechanical  arrangements 
it  was  considerably  inferior  to  Wheatstone's  telegraph,  and  the 
former  soon  gave  it  up  and  adopted  a  modification  of  the 
contrivance  of  Morse.  The  celebrated  dot-and-dash,  or  regis- 
tration, system  of  this  American  professor,  which  has  been 
generally  used  throughout  the  United  States  as  its  means  of 
telegraphy,  is  treated  of  in  the  succeeding  article. 

The  rapid  interchange  of  intelligence  between  individuals 
resident  in  different  nations  and  states  and  in  different  cities 
and  towns,  as  well  as  within  many  of  the  great  centres  of  popu- 
lation which  Professor  Wheatstone  really  commenced  by  his 
.telegraphic  system ;  and  the  splendid  and  most  useful  results 
which  have  followed  from  the  early  receipt  of  political,  mer- 
cantile, and  other  news,  both  public  and  private,  after  it  is 
committed  to  the  telegraphic  wires,  —  have  been  so  marvel- 
lous and  almost  immeasurably  beneficial,  that  no  reasonable 
person  who  is  acquainted  with  the  grand  experiments  of 
this  eminent  man  can  justly  "question  his  title  to  be  ranked 
among  the  more  distinguished  of  our  permanent  cosmopolitan 
benefactors. 

As  to  the  honors  which  were  conferred  upon  this  illustrious 
professor,  these  were  both  important  and  numerous.  In  1840, 
and  again  in  1843,  he  was  awarded  the  Royal  Medal  of  the 
Royal  Society  as  a  high  acknowledgment  of  his  meritorious 
experimental  researches.  He  was  also  appointed  vice-pres- 
ident of  this  society,  and  a  corresponding  member  of  the  Im- 
perial Institute  of  France  and  of  the  chief  scientific  academies 
of  the  principal  capitals  of  Europe,  and  in  addition  received 
nearly  thirty  foreign  distinctions.  He  was  knighted  in  1868, 
and  died  in  Paris  in  1875.  Although  he  appears  to  have  writ- 
ten but  little  for  publication  for  the  use  of  general  readers, 


644  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

the  scientific  journals  and  transactions  contain  many  durable 
records  of  his  discoveries,  applications,  and  inventions  which 
have  greatly  furthered  the  progress  of  science  and  civilization 
throughout  the  world. 


SAMUEL    F.    B.    MORSE. 

[BouN   1791.    DIED  1872.] 

AMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE,  the  inventor  of  the  "  Morse  "  sys- 
tern  of  telegraphy,  was  born  at  Charlestown,  Massachusetts, 
April  27,  1791.  He  was  the  son  of  the  Rev.  Jedediah  Morse, 
who  is  sometimes  called  the  father  of  American  geography,  he 
having  prepared  and  published  the  earliest  text-books  upon 
that  subject  that  issued  from  the  press  of  this  country. 

When  young  Morse  was  twelve  years  old,  he  was  sent  to  Yale, 
where  he  exhibited  a  much  greater  aptitude  for  drawing  and 
painting  than  he  did  for  academic  studies;  so  much  so  that 
Dr.  Dwight,  the  president  of  the  college,  once  severely  repri- 
manded him  for  his  want  of  application,  and,  thinking  to  reclaim 
the  dull  student  by  "  heroic  treatment,"  nearly  broke  the  boy's 
heart  by  telling  him  that  he  was  "  no  painter."  Morse,  how- 
ever, thought  otherwise,  and  upon  leaving  college  he  determined 
to  adopt  painting  as  his  profession.  To  this  end  he  went  to  Eu- 
rope under  the  care  of  Allston,  and  in  London  he  became  the 
pupil  of  West.  After  studying  four  years  under  these  masters, 
Morse  returned  to  America,  opened  a  studio,  and  began  work 
as  a  portrait- painter.  He  pursued  this  calling  with  limited  suc- 
cess until  1832,  when,  as  he  was  returning  home  from  England 
in  the  ship  "  Sully,"  the  novel  idea  of  transmitting  intelligible 
signals  by  means  of  electricity  became  a  topic  of  discussion 
among  the  passengers.  Professor  Jackson,  who  was  on  board, 
has  declared  that  he  first  gave  Morse  the  idea  of  its  practi- 
cability. The  subject  immediately  took  such  firm  hold  upon 
Morse's  mind  that  thenceforth  how  to  solve  the  problem  became 


SAMUEL    F.    B.    MORSE. 


SAMUEL   F.   B.    MORSE.  647 

the  absorbing  idea  of  his  life.  He  brooded  over  it  in  secret ;  he 
attended  scientific  lectures  ;  he  patiently  experimented  with  this 
new  and  mysterious  agent  until  a  method  for  practically  adapting 
it  to  the  end  he  had  in  view  was  found.  There  is  no  claim  that 
Morse  possessed  peculiar  knowledge  in  this  branch  of  science. 
Such  is  not  the  fact.  But  it  is  certain  that  from  the  moment  it 
first  presented  itself  to  his  mind  he  grasped  its  great  possibili- 
ties with  peculiar  intelligence ;  and  he  pursued  his  idea  not  only 
with  such  earnest  conviction  of  its  entire  feasibility,  but  with 
such  determination  to  succeed,  as  very  shortly  took  the  prob- 
lem of  electrical  telegraphy  out  of  the  experimental  stage  in 
which  he  had  found  it,  and  placed  it  upon  that  of  recognized 
practical  utility.  While  it  would  be  unjust  to  others  to  claim  for 
him  all  the  merit  of  this  truly  wonderful  discovery,1  Morse's  in- 
vention is  so  distinctly  original,  so  simple,  and  so  thoroughly 
practical  in  its  workings  as  to  have  advanced  it  at  once  to  the 
head  of  all  the  methods  that  his  age  has  produced,  and  it  is  to- 
day in  more  general  use  than  any  other. 

The  galvanic  battery,  the  passing  of  an  electrical  current 
generated  by  it  through  a  wire  connecting  the  positive  and  neg- 
ative poles  of  two  such  batteries,  and  the  action  of  the  electro- 
magnet were  things  that  were  then  occupying  the  attention  of 
the  learned  scientists  of  Europe.  The  discoveries  of  Volta  and 
Arago  were  being  steadily  advanced  by  Faraday,  Steinheil,  and 
Wheatstone  ;  but  to  Morse  belongs  the  credit  of  having  perfected 
a  method  of  recording  upon  paper  at  one  end  of  a  wire  the 
characters  formed  by  the  operator  at  the  other,  by  simply 
opening  and  closing  the  telegraphic  circuit.  Its  merits  were 
so  evident  that  Professor  Steinheil  with  rare  disinterestedness 
wrote  to  his  American  rival  that  he  had  decided  to  abandon  his 
own  system  in  favor  of  that  of  his  distinguished  confrere.  Noth- 
ing, in  fact,  could  be  simpler  than  Morse's  combination  of  the 
electro-magnet  with  his  receiving  instrument  and  manipulating 
key. 

But  before  this  admirable  result  was  attained  by  Morse,  there 
ensued  a  long  period  of  toil,  anxiety,  and  suspense,  inseparable 
1  Refer  to  the  article  on  Wheatstone. 


648  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

from  the  history  of  every  great  invention.  It  took  Morse  five 
years  to  get  his  own  into  shape  so  as  to  be  able  to  file  a  caveat 
in  the  Patent  Office  at  Washington,  and  three  more  to  perfect 
his  idea.  It  was  not  until  1844  that  Morse  obtained  from  Con- 
gress a  grant  of  $30,000,  which  was  the  sum  he  asked  for  to 
enable  him  to  construct  between  Baltimore  and  Washington  the 
first  telegraph  line  in  America.  While  his  bill  was  pending  the 
inventor  passed  through  all  the  alternations  from  hope  to  de- 
spair; for  after  its  passage  by  the  Lower  House  it  was  so  bur- 
ied underneath  those  bills  having  priority  in  the  Senate  that 
to  reach  it  in  the  few  remaining  days  of  the  session  seemed  an 
impossibility.  On  the  last  day  Morse  left  the  Senate  Chamber 
at  a  late  hour  in  despair.  After  paying  his  hotel  bill  he  had 
only  enough  money  left  in  his  pocket  to  take  him  back  to  New 
York.  He  had  staked  everything  upon  the  issue,  and  he  had 
lost.  It  was  now  become  an  imperious  necessity  to  abandon  his 
darling  project  for  some  occupation  that  would  at  least  give  him 
a  livelihood.  At  fifty-three  such  a  prospect  comes  home  to  a 
man  with  overwhelming  force.  In  this  frame  of  mind,  but  with 
that  unshaken  courage  characteristic  of  him,  Morse  prepared  to 
leave  Washington  on  the  following  day.  In  the  morning,  while 
the  inventor  was  getting  ready  to  start,  he  was  notified  that  a 
young  lady  wished  to  speak  to  him.  This  early  caller  proved 
to  be  Miss  Annie  G.  Ellsworth,  the  daughter  of  the  Commis- 
sioner of  Patents.  She  seemed  to  be  in  great  spirits. 

"I  'bring  you  my  father's  congratulations  and  my  own,"  she 
said. 

"  For  what?  "  the  surprised  inventor  asked. 

"Why,  upon  your  great  triumph,  to  be  sure;  the  passage  of 
your  bill." 

"  Ah  !  thanks,  my  dear  child  ;  but  you  are  then  ignorant  that 
I  only  left  the  Senate  at  a  late  hour  after  seeing  that  the  bill 
could  not  pass?" 

"  Oh,  sir,  is  it  possible  that  I  am  the  one  to  first  bring  you 
this  great  news  ?  The  bill  did  pass  ;  my  father  was  there.  " 

"  Annie  !  "  cried  Morse,  "  the  very  first  message  which  passes 
over  my  wires  shall  be  yours." 


SAMUEL   F.    B.    MORSE.  649 

This  promise  was  faithfully  kept.1  By  the  month  of  May 
the  wires  had  been  hung  on  poles,  and  the  two  cities  were  con- 
nected. When  all  was  ready  Miss  Ellsworth  announced  to  the 
world  the  greatest  achievement  of  the  age  in  these  four  noble 
words,  —  "  What  hath  God  wrought !  " 

It  is  unnecessary  here  to  record  the  progress  of  telegraphic 
communication  throughout  the  globe.  From  the  day  that  pro- 
claimed his  telegraph  to  be  an  accomplished  fact,  honors  were 
showered  upon  its  illustrious  inventor  from  every  quarter ;  and 
long  before  his  death,  which  occurred  in  1872,  Professor 
Morse  was  permitted,  with  rare  good  fortune,  to  realize  how 
great  were  the  benefits  that  had  accrued  not  only  to  science  but 
to  the  human  race  through  his  instrumentality.  To-day  any 
interruption  of  telegraphic  communication  is  an  interruption  of 
the  business  of  the  world, 'which  would  be  followed  by  results 
disastrous,  not  alone  to  commerce,  with  all  its  vast  and  varied 
interests,  but  also  to  the  every-day  wants  of  the  people  at  large. 
As  no  other  means  of  communication  has  ever  performed  such 
extensive  or  important  functions  as  the  electric  telegraph  is  now 
doing,  we  cannot  help  regarding  its  discovery  as  the  greatest 
step  towards  the  universal  brotherhood  of  nations  that  mankind 
has  yet  taken.  Most  truly  has  it  annihilated  space,  and  thus 
joined  the  hands  of  all  peoples  on  the  face  of  the  globe  in  one 
grand,  magnetic  impulse  towards  a  higher  civilization,  which 
through  instant  interchange  of  deeds  or  ideas  is  silently  working 
out  its  promised  fulfilment.  Before  this  discovery  Archimedes' 
boast  fades  into  insignificance.  With  a  spark  Professor  Morse 
has  not  only  moved  the  world,  he  has  illuminated  it  without 
other  fulcrum  than  his  own  superior  intelligence.  This,  in  point 
of  fact,  is  the  point  (fappui  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

1  This  valuable  souvenir,  which  occupies  about  as  much  space  as  the  palm  of  the 
hand,  is  now  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Koswell  Smith,  of  New  York,  Mrs.  Roswell 
Smith  being  the  Miss  Annie  Ellsworth  referred  to.  An  autograph  from  Professor 
Morse  reads  :  "  This  sentence  was  written  from  Washington  by  me,  at  the  Baltimore 
terminus,  at  8  h.  45  min.  A.  M.,  on  Friday,  May  24,  1844,  being  the  first  ever  transmit- 
ted from  Washington  to  Baltimore  by  telegraph,  and  was  indited  by  my  much  loved 
friend,  Miss  Annie  G.  Ellsworth.  SAM'L  F.  B.  MORSE,  Superintendent  of  Elec. 
Mag.  Telegraphs." 


65*  OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 


THOMAS    ALVA    EDISON. 

[BORN  AT  MILAN,  OHIO,  1847.] 

"\ /TEN  of  genius  are  found  in  every  age ;  but  genius  allied 
-1V.L  with  fertility  of  resource,  with  breadth  of  view,  with 
indomitable  energy  and  persistency,  is  a  gift  too  rare  for  Na- 
ture to  bestow  oftener  than  once  in  a  century.  When  such  a 
man  appears,  he  rises  head  and  shoulders  above  his  contem- 
poraries ;  and  that  is  where  Thomas  A.  Edison,  by  common 
consent,  stands  to-day. 

His  is  the  old,  the  oft-repeated  story  of  a  poor  boy,  of 
humble  parentage,  of  scarcely  any  education,  and  with  little 
or  no  equipment,  discipline,  or  training,  outstripping  the  pro- 
foundest  thinkers  of  his  time,  and  upon  their  own  chosen 
ground.  Those  who  have  called  Edison  a  mere  man  of  ex- 
pedients have  failed  to  correctly  gauge  the  calibre  of  his  mind. 
Edison  owes  nothing  to  the  schools,  to  society,  or  to  patronage. 
He  is  a  natural  force,  and  as  such  has  at  last  made  his  own 
way  to  universal  recognition.  Our  Fultons,  our  Whitneys,  our 
Morses,  and  our  Edisons,  all  go  to  show  that  great  inventors, 
like  great  poets,  are  born  and  not  made,  and  that  the  New 
World  is  taking  the  lead  in  the  grand  march  of  progress. 

Young  Edison  began  life  as  a  train-boy  on  a  railway  in  the 
West.  If  we  look  at  the  date  at  the  head  of  this  article,  we 
shall  see  that  the  inventor  of  the  duplex  and  quadruplex  sys- 
tems of  telegraphy,  of  the  phonograph,  and  of  the  most  prac- 
ticable and  satisfactory  method  of  electric  lighting  thus  far 
discovered,  is  not  yet  forty  years  old.  Even  as  a  boy,  his 
brain  was  busy  with  problems  that  clearly  prove  an  intellectual 
precocity,  going  far  beyond  his  years.  For  instance,  while 


THOMAS    ALVA    EDISON. 


THOMAS    ALVA   EDISON.  653 

he  was  selling  newspapers,  as  a  mere  lad  in  his  teens,  it  oc- 
curred to  him  that  if  he  were  to  telegraph  short  summaries 
of  news  to  be  bulletined  at  stations  in  advance  of  the  arrival 
of  his  train,  it  would  be  a  good  scheme ;  upon  this  idea  he 
acted.  When  the  enterprising  newsboy  stepped  out  upon 
the  platform,  he  was  at  once  surrounded  by  eager  customers, 
whose  appetite  for  news  had  been  whetted  by  reading  his  bul- 
letins. Young  Edison  then  conceived  the  idea  of  publishing 
a  paper  of  his  own,  which  was  actually  printed  on  board  the 
train,  though  in  the  rudest  manner;  the  impressions  being 
taken  from  the  types  by  rubbing  the  paper  with  the  hand. 
It  was  here,  too,  that  the  boy  first  set  his  audacious  foot 
within  the  domain  of  science.  Unconsciously  his  true  vocation 
was  dawning  upon  his  eager  mind.  He  haunted  the  railway 
shops ;  he  studied  the  mechanism  of  locomotives ;  and  in  mo- 
ments of  leisure  he  became  an  omnivorous  reader  of  such  books 
as  Newton's  "  Principia  "  and  Dr.  Ure's  Dictionary.  The  won- 
ders of  chemistry  thus  opened  to  him  seized  upon  his  youthful 
imagination  so  strongly  that  we  presently  find  the  lad  buying 
up  various  chemicals,  with  which  he  set  up  his  first  laboratory 
in  the  same  car  that  had  served  him  for  a  printing-office. 
But  alas  for  his  hopes  in  this  direction!  In  an  unlucky  hour 
his  phosphorus  one  day  set  the  car  on  fire.  The  flames  threat- 
ened destruction  to  the  train  and  all  on  board.  The  young 
chemist,  along  with  his  types  and  bottles,  was  summarily  ejected 
from  the  train  for  having  put  the  lives  and  property  of  the 
passengers  in  peril  by  his  carelessness. 

By  this  time  Edison  had  mastered  the  rudiments  of  practical 
telegraphy,  and  he  had  resolved  to  be  an  operator  as  soon  as 
he  could  make  his  way  into  an  office.  We  may  see,  even  at  this 
stage,  how  quick  was  his  invention.  On  one  occasion  when  the 
submarine  cable  between  Port  Huron  and  Sarnia  had  been 
broken  by  the  ice,  and  telegraphic  communication  interrupted, 
Edison  jumped  upon  a  locomotive  that  happened  to  be  standing 
by  the  river  with  steam  up,  and,  pulling  open  the  valve,  pro- 
ceeded to  give  with  the  whistle  sounds  corresponding  to  the 
Morse  telegraphic  signals.  He  repeated  these  signals,  which  of 


654  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

course  drew  everybody's  attention  by  their  noise,  until  the  tele- 
graph operator  upon  the  other  side  of  the  river  had  caught  the 
idea  and  had  answered  in  the  same  manner,  thus  establishing 
the  communication. 

For  the  next  few  years  Edison  developed  a  good  deal  of  the 
roving  propensity  of  his  class;  but  there  were  some  things 
about  him  that  very  soon  established  his  decided  superiority 
among  his  fellows.  In  the  first  place  he  exerted  himself  to 
the  utmost  to  become  a  skilled  operator,  working  early  and 
late,  visiting  the  office  after  the  regular  hours  for  work  were 
ended,  and  studying  how  to  make  his  services  most  useful  to 
his  employers.  But  what  speedily  raised  Edison  above  the 
rank  of  a  mere  master  oF  routine  work  was  the  grand  deter- 
mination he  displayed  to  fathom  the  mysteries  of  electrical 
science.  Herein  he  showed  the  powers  and  attributes  of  a 
superior  mind.  To  him  the  wondrous  exploits  that  he  daily 
performed  on  a  slender  wire  had  opened  a  new  world  filled 
with  the  most  fascinating  possibilities  and  promise.  He  be- 
came what  some  of  his  critics  have  asserted  that  he  is  not,  — 
a  scientific  thinker ;  for  •  there  is  not  one  of  his  discoveries 
that  does  not  rest  upon  some  principle  the  elements  of  which 
Edison  has  thought  out  for  himself,  or  that  has  not  in  some 
way  advanced  the  general  cause  of  science  by  building  upon 
what  was  already  known.  In  a  very  short  time  he  had  de- 
vised the  automatic  repeating-instrument,  by  which  a  series 
of  telegraph  lines  may  be  joined  (practically  speaking),  and 
worked  without  the  help  of  an  operator  at  the  connecting 
points.  The  "  repeater "  then  in  general  use  required  the 
constant  oversight  of  an  operator  to  reverse  and  to  keep 
it  adjusted.  To  Edison  this  useful,  labor-saving  invention 
was  only  a  step  in  the  direction  he  was  pursuing.  He  had 
become  possessed  with  the  idea  that  double  transmission  on 
a  single  wire  was  possible ;  and  his  experiments,  his  search 
among  books,  and  his  preoccupation  soon  gained  for  him  the 
title  of  "  luny "  among  his  companions,  besides  discrediting 
him  with  his  employers.  A  few  years  more  passed,  and  the 
electricians  as  well  as  the  uninstructed  public  were  astounded 


THOMAS    ALVA    EDISON.  655 

by  the  announcement  that  a  mechanism  had  been  perfected 
by  an  unknown  telegraph-operator,  by  which  messages  were 
being  sent  over  the  same  wire  in  opposite  directions  at  the 
same  time.  It  was  held  to  be  an  impossibility,  an  absurdity, 
in  plain  violation  of  all  the  well-known  laws  governing  the 
action  of  electrical  currents.  But  there  was  no  getting  over 
actual  demonstration  ;  for  the  "  duplex  basis  "  was  soon  doub- 
ling the  capacity  of  overworked  wires. 

But  we  are  advancing  a  little  the  story  of  Thomas  A.  Edison's 
development  from  a  boy  who  dreamed  dreams  and  saw  visions 
into  the  man  who  has  seen  most  of  those  visions  realized  to 
the  fullest  extent. 

The  year  1870. proved  to  be  the  turning-point  in  Edison's  ca- 
reer. In  that  year  he  arrived  in  New  York.  His  dabbling  with 
inventions  had  lost  him  one  situation  after  another.  "  Com- 
petent, but  unreliable  "  was  the  verdict  of  one  manager  after 
another,  who  had  tried  him.  Unsuccessful  in  procuring  work, 
it  is  said  that  he  wandered  through  the  streets  of  the  great 
city  penniless,  friendless,  and  hungry.  One  day  he  happened 
to  step  into  the  office  of  the  Laws  Gold-Reporting  Telegraph 
Company.  The  office  instrument  was  out  of  order,  and  the 
inventor  in  despair.  Edison  looked  at  it;  he  thought  that  he 
could  make  it  work,  and  was  permitted  to  make  the  trial.  In 
a  few  moments  he  had  the  complicated  little  instrument  ticking 
as  usual,  and  was  immediately  employed.  Edison's  discourage- 
ments were  now  at  an  end.  He  at  once  began  the  work  of 
improving  the  Indicator,  and  had  very  soon  produced  his 
Gold  Printer.  His  inventions  pertaining  to  this  branch  of  te- 
legraphy have  largely  superseded  the  old  apparatus  employed, 
and  they  have  resulted  in  greatly  extending  the  system 
throughout  the  commercial  centres  of  the  country.  Means 
were  now  at  Edison's  command.  Business  flowed  in  upon 
him  in  a  steady  stream.  Establishing  himself  in  Newark,  New 
Jersey,  Edison  became  the  head  of  a  manufactory  for  turning 
out  his  improved  instruments.  With  three  hundred  workmen, 
with  full  scope  for  his  ingenuity,  his  inventions  multiplied  so 
rapidly  that  he  was  described  by  the  Commissioner  of  Patents 
42 


656  OUR    GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

as  "  the  young  man  who  kept  the  path  to  the  Patent  Office 
hot  with  his  footsteps."  Most  of  these  were  for  improvements 
in  electrical  apparatus  or  methods  of  transmission;  and  in- 
deed it  must  be  admitted  that  Edison's  most  solid  successes 
are  his  telegraphic  inventions.  Perceiving  his  value  at  last,  the 
same  company  from  whose  service  Edison  had  been  repeatedly 
turned  away  on  account  of  his  so-called  vagaries  was  now 
glad  to  retain  him  at  a  munificent  salary  in  consideration  of 
securing  for  itself  the  first  chance  to  use  his  discoveries.  When 
we  state  that  Edison's  patents  relating  to  telegraphy  alone  al- 
ready number  not  far  from  a  hundred  in  all,  the  value  of  this 
connection,  as  well  as  the  point  of  the  remark  that  "  Edison  kept 
the  path  to  the  Patent  Office  hot  with  his  footsteps,"  will  fully 
appear. 

It  was  during  the  summer  of  1874,  at  Newark,  while  experi- 
menting with  the  view  of  introducing  certain  modifications  into 
the  duplex  apparatus,  that  Edison  discovered  the  basis  of  the 
quadruplex  system  of  telegraphy.  "  The  distinguishing  feature 
of  this  method  consists  in  combining  at  two  terminal  stations 
two  distinct  and  unlike  modes  of  single  transmission  in  such  a 
manner  that  they  may  be  carried  on  independently  on  the  same 
wire  and  at  the  same  time  without  interfering  with  each  other." 
One  of  these  methods  is  known  as  the  double-current  system, 
and  the  other  as  the  single-current  or  open-circuit  system.  By 
making  use  of  these  two  methods,  combined  with  the  duplex 
principle  of  simultaneous  transmission  in  opposite  directions, 
four  sets  of  instruments  may  be  operated  at  the  same  time  on 
the  same  wire. 

In  1873  Edison  was  married  to  Miss  Mary  Stillwell,  of 
Newark.  An  incident  is  related  of  the  honeymoon  as  tending 
to  show  how  entire  was  the  absorption  of  the  inventor  in  his 
work.  One  of  his  friends  upon  returning  home  at  a  late  hour 
saw  a  light  in  Edison's  laboratory,  and  climbed  the  stairs  to  find 
the  inventor  plunged  in  one  of  his  characteristic  stupors  over 
some  problem  that  happened  to  be  taxing  his  mind  to  the 
utmost.  Seeing  his  visitor  standing  before  him,  Edison  roused 
himself  and  wearily  asked  the  hour.  "  Midnight,"  was  the 


THOMAS    ALVA   EDISON.  657 

reply.     "  Then,"   said  the  inventor,  "  I  must  go  home.     I  was 
married  to-day." 

The  Phonograph,  or  "  Talking-Machine,"  was  discovered,  ac- 
cording to  Mr.  Edison,  by  the  merest  accident.  For  a  time  it 
astounded  the  ignorant  and  the  learned  alike;  for  even  when 
the  simple  nature  of  the  mechanism  that  could  repeat  all  pos- 
sible modulations  of  the  human  voice  with  absolute  fidelity  was 
clearly  understood,  there  seemed  at  first  sight  no  limit  to  the 
possible  uses  for  which  such  an  instrument  might  be  employed. 
A  world  of  delighted  speculation  was  quickly  opened  ;  but  thus 
far  the  Phonograph  has  developed  less  practical  value  than  was 
hoped  for  it. 

Said  Mr.  Edison  to  some  friends  at  Menlo  Park:  "  I  was  sing- 
ing to  the  mouthpiece  of  a  telephone,  when  the  vibrations  of 
the  wire  sent  the  fine  steel  point  into  my  finger.  That  set  me 
to  thinking.  If  I  could  record  the  action  of  the  point,  and  then 
send  the  point  over  the  same  surface  afterwards,  I  saw  no  rea- 
son why  the  thing  would  not  talk.  I  tried  the  experiment,  first 
on  a  strip  of  telegraph  paper,  and  found  that  the  point  made 
an  alphabet.  I  shouted  the  word  '  Halloo  !  Halloo  !  '  into  the 
mouthpiece,  ran  the  paper  back  over  the  steel  point,  and  heard 
a  faint  '  Halloo  !  Halloo  !  '  in  return.  That 's  the  whole  story. 
The  discovery  came  through  the  pricking  of  a  finger." 

When  Edison's  phonograph  was  first  exhibited  to  the  Acad- 
emy of  Sciences  a  murmur  of  admiration  was  heard  from  all 
parts  of  the  hall,  — a  murmur  succeeded  by  repeated  applause. 
Yet  some  members  of  a  sceptical  turn  started  a  report  that  the 
Academy  had  been  mystified  by  a  clever  ventriloquist.  Re- 
peated experiments  were  required  to  convince  these  incredulous 
persons  that  no  chicanery  was  used,  and  that  after  a  few  trials 
they  could  manipulate  the  phonograph  as  easily  as  Mr.  Edison's 
agent  had  done  in  their  presence. 

Edison's  own  discoveries,  or  his  application  of  new  principles 
to  the  discoveries  of  others,  have  come  so  thick  and  fast  that  we 
must  be  content  with  a  simple  reference  to  the  more  important 
ones.  His  Carbon  Telephone  was  one  of  the  earliest  and  most 
interesting  improvements  made  upon  the  telephone  of  Professor 


658  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Bell,  who  is  the  subject  of  an  article  in  this  volume.  Edison 
began  his  experiments  in  the  early  part  of  1876  with  the  Reiss 
Transmitter;  and  after  continuing  them  a  long  time  with  no  great 
success,  he  at  length  found  that  a  simple  carbon  disk,  made 
of  lampblack,  was  the  key  to  the  problem  which  he  had  been  so 
long  endeavoring  to  work  out.  The  carbon  button,  or  disk,  was 
the  essential  factor.  For  this  telephone  Edison  received  the 
sum  of  $  1 00,000.  It  at  once  greatly  enlarged  the  sphere  of 
telephone  communication  by  making  it  available  for  conversing 
at  greater  distances  than  had  been  practicable  with  the  tele- 
phones in  common  use.  Upon  being  put  into  the  telegraphic 
circuit  between  New  York  and  Philadelphia  it  was  found  to 
work  well,  while  the  other  telephones  would  not  transmit  intel- 
ligible sounds.  The  following  year  (1879),  Edison's  apparatus 
was  tested  on  a  wire  210  miles  long,  between  Chicago  and  Indi- 
anapolis, and  was  then  found  to  work  with  the  best  results. 

The  Megaphone  is  a  combined  speaking  and  ear  trumpet,  by 
which  persons  may  converse  in  the  open  air  when  several  miles 
apart.  It  was  suggested  by  the  phonograph.  There  are  two 
great  ear-trumpets  and  one  speaking-trumpet  mounted  together 
upon  a  tripod.  Mr.  Edison  has  applied  the  same  principle  to  a 
smaller  instrument  to  be  used  by  deaf  persons,  who  may  thus 
hear  a  whisper  distinctly  in  the  largest  public  hall,  and  so  prac- 
tically overcome  a  defective  hearing.  One  objection  that  we 
have  heard  urged  against  the  use  of  the  megaphone  out  of 
doors  is  that  it  collects  all  intervening  sounds  coming  within  its 
range,  even  the  twitter  of  birds  and  the  cropping  of  the  grass 
by  animals  being  confusedly  heard. 

We  now  come  to  that  most  beneficent  of  modern  discoveries, 
the  electric  light,  —  the  only  artificial  light  whose  brilliancy  ap- 
proaches that  of  the  sun.  It  is  now  coming  into  common  use, 
both  for  out-of-door  and  in-door  illuminations,  —  streets,  railways, 
manufactories,  theatres,  steamships,  and  lighthouses  being  al- 
ready included  in  its  practical  working,  —  and  the  public  are  now 
awaiting  with  impatience  its  promised  introduction  into  private 
houses  in  the  same  manner  and  as  a  substitute  for  gas.  When 
this  shall  be  fully  accomplished,  as  much  will  be  added  to  the 


THOMAS    ALVA   EDISON.  659 

comfort  and  safety  of  every  home  as  has  already  been  secured 
to  simple  pedestrians  and  travellers  at  home  or  abroad.  It  is 
to  the  elucidation  of  this  particular  problem  that  Edison  has 
latterly  directed  all  his  resources. 

Although  the  general  principle  of  the  electric  light  is  more  or 
less  clearly  understood,  to  the  multitude  it  remains  as  great  a 
phenomenon  as  ever.  Stated  as  briefly  as  we  can  do  it,  this 
principle  is  that  the  passage  and  play  of  an  electric  current  across 
a  break  by  means  of  electrodes — like  carbon,  for  instance  — 
brings  those  substances  to  a  white  heat,  or  glow,  which  is  main- 
tained so  long  as  the  conducting  substance  is  not  consumed. 
Every  one  has  seen  the  effect  of  a  jeweller's  blow-pipe  upon  a 
piece  of  charcoal.  So,  if  two  carbon  pencils  are  attached  each 
to  one  end  of  the  conducting  wire,  and  are  then  brought  nearly 
into  contact,  the  electric  current  or  spark  will  freely  pass  from 
one  to  the  other,  and  combustion  of  the  carbon  sticks  takes 
place.  This  produces  that  dazzling  white  light  used  for  illu- 
minating streets  or  other  open  areas,  and  is  called  the  "  voltaic 
arc,"  or,  briefly,  the  "  arc  light,"  from  the  nature  of  the  flame. 
The  light  is  kept  steady  by  clockwork,  which  moves  the  car- 
bon pencils  nearer  as  they  are  consumed.  To  produce  a  light 
of  the  desired  intensity  the  electric  current  must  be  of  corre- 
sponding energy,  or  what  would  be  sufficient  to  kill  a  man  or  a 
horse  as  quickly  as  a  stroke  of  lightning  if  passed  through  the 
body  of  either;  so  that,  unless  they  are  buried  underground, 
the  electric-lighting  wires  constitute  an  element  of  danger.  Sir 
Humphry  Davy  was  the  discoverer  of  the  voltaic  arc. 

The  second  method  of  electric  lighting,  and  the  one  to  which 
Edison  is  almost  exclusively  devoting  himself  at  this  time,  is 
that  usually  known  as  the  incandescent  light.  This  is  bringing 
carbon  to  incandescence  within  a  vacuum  by  the  same  means 
we  have  just  described.  But  the  results  are  far  different;  for 
the  flame  is  now  enclosed  within  a  glass  bulb  instead  of  being 
exposed  like  a  gas  jet,  and  is  therefore  safer  for  interior  illumina- 
tion. Not  being  in  contact  with  the  air,  the  light  is  also  steadier 
and  more  constant,  and  the  waste  of  the  carbon  is  checked.  When 
Edison  came  to  the  investigation  he  had  never  seen  an  electric 


660  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

light;  but  at  the  Paris  Exhibition  of  1881  Edison's  improve- 
ments in  the  whole  system  of  electric  lighting  by  incandescence 
were  pronounced  by  experts  far  the  best  of  any  then  submitted. 
In  speaking  of  the  various  exhibits  of  electrical  lamps,  Mr. 
Preece,  one  of  these  experts,  says  that  the  lamp  which  possessed 
the  greatest  novelty  and  was  decidedly  the  most  efficient  was 
that  of  Mr.  Edison.  The  distinctive  character  of  the  Edison 
lamp  is  the  remarkable  uniformity  of  its  texture  and  light-giving 
power.  It  consists  of  a  fine  filament  of  carbon,  not  much  larger 
than  a  horse-hair,  inserted  as  a  part  of  the  electric  circuit  inside 
a  glass  globe  which  has  been  exhausted  of  air  to  the  utmost 
attainable  limit.  A  fine  uniform  quality  of  Japanese  bamboo 
has  been  selected  as  giving  the  best  filament  for  carbonizing. 
This  filament  is  warranted  to  burn  for  six  hundred  hours.  The 
whole  lamp  can  be  unscrewed  from  its  socket  and  replaced  by 
another  lamp  in  a  moment.  When  it  is  thus  detached  the  elec- 
tric circuit  is  of  course  broken  and  ihe  light  xtinguished. 
When  replaced,  the  circuit  is  perfected  and  the  lamp  instantly 
relights  itself.  There  are  no  cocks  to  be  turned  on  or  off,  and 
there  is  no  gas  to  escape.  Nothing  could  be  simpler  in  its 
working  or  more  beautiful  in  its  results. 

"  What  constitutes  Mr.  Edison's  system,"  remarks  the  Comte 
du  Moncel,  "  is  not  alone  his  lamps ;  it  is  the  totality  of  the  ar- 
rangements referring  to  them,  which  have  attained  such  a  degree 
of  simplicity  that  henceforth  nothing  remains  to  be  desired  in 
practice.  Generating  machines,  distribution  of  circuits,  instal- 
lation, indicating  and  regulating  apparatus,  meters  for  measur- 
ing the  amount  of  current  employed,  are  all  combined  for 
immediate  application."  In  fact,  every  detail  has  been  thor- 
oughly worked  out  by  Mr.  Edison,  whose  lamps  to  the  number 
of  75,000  are  already  in  use  throughout  the  world,  some  18,000 
being  found  in  the  stores,  mills,  and  workshops  of  New  Eng- 
land. In  New  York  the  Edison  system  has  already  been  applied 
to  the  lighting  of  a  district  a  mile  square,  in  which  the  supply 
of  dwelling-houses  is  included  ;  and  in  Brockton,  Massachusetts, 
the  same  system  is  now  in  course  of  installation  for  lighting  the 
numerous  factories  of  that  thriving  city,  the  supply  in  each  case 


ELIAS    HOWE. 


ELIAS    HOWE.  663 

being  generated  at  a  central  station  and  distributed  throughout 
the  district  to  be  lighted  by  subterranean  wires. 

Mr.  Edison's  workshop  at  Menlo  Park,  New  Jersey,  is  a  hive 
of  industry,  in  which  the  inventor  is  the  animating  genius.  His 
first  announcement  of  the  perfection  of  his  incandescent  light 
was  received  in  Europe  with  a  general  cry  of  derision.  In  the 
"  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  "  of  so  late  an  issue  as  1878,  Edison  is 
not  even  mentioned.  His  extraordinary  talents  have  at  length 
commanded  universal  recognition,  and  to-day  he  stands  without 
a  peer  among  the  discoverers  and  inventors  of  his  age. 


ELIAS    HOWE. 

[BORN  1819.    DIED  1867.] 

*"T"*HE  miseries  that  have  been  borne  by  those  who,  had  they 
-*-  lived  in  our  own  time,  need  not  have  been  ground  by  want, 
is  one  of  the  saddest  reflections  that  can  come  to  us.  We  can- 
not explain  why  these  things  are.  It  is  this  reflection  that  gives 
point  to  Hood's  famous  "Song  of  the  Shirt;"  for  since  the 
sewing-machine  is  now  found  in  every  household,  however 
humble,  no  woman  starves  over  her  needle.  Thanks  to  that 
wondrous  piece  of  mechanism,  the  needlewoman  of  to-day  is  no 
longer  one  of  a  class  whose  deplorable  condition  calls  for  special 
effort  on  the  part  of  the  philanthropist.  To  her,  indeed,  more 
than  to  any  other,  has  the  sewing-machiue  proved  a  priceless 
blessing;  for  not  only  has  it  prodigiously  extended  the  scope  of 
woman's  labor,  but  it  has  raised  that  labor  from  its  former  con- 
dition of  hopeless  and  ill-paid  drudgery  to  one  easily  performed 
and  fairly  remunerative.  We  think  there  will  be  no  dissent 
from  the  statement  that  the  sewing-machine  has  done  more  to 
broaden  the  working-woman's  opportunities  than  any  invention 
of  the  century. 

We  are  not  now  to  state  by  an  array  of  facts  and  figures  how 
much  the  invention  of  Elias  Howe  may  have  added  to  the  pro- 


664  OUR  GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

ductive  industry  of  the  world ;  but  we  may  say,  briefly,  that  the 
gross  sum  contributed  by  the  various  departments  of  skilled 
labor  in  which  sewing-machines  are  employed  has  reached  an 
enormous  sum  total.  Not  only  has  the  invention  superseded 
many  of  the  older  methods  employed  in  the  manufactures  of 
cotton,  silk,  or  woollen  fabrics,  but  even  such  refractory  sub- 
stances as  leather  are  now  easily  made  up  into  the  thousand 
and  one  articles  for  which  those  substances  are  adapted. 

The  first  attempts  to  make  a  machine  that  would  take  the 
place  of  sewing  by  hand  go  as  far  back  as  1755,  and  they  origi- 
nated in  Europe.  Quite  a  number  of  persons  are  credited  with 
having  got  hold  of  the  crude  idea  that  sewing  by  machinery  was 
practicable,  and  one  after  another  attempted  the  devising  of  a 
mechanical  contrivance  for  the  purpose.  Each  may  be  said  to 
have  contributed  something  to  the  general  result,  although  no 
one  had  succeeded  in  attaining  it.  Freisenthal's,  Alsop's,  Dun- 
can's, Heilman's,  Saint's,  and  Thimonier's  experiments  were 
each  and  all  approximations  toward  the  desired  end.  But 
neither  of  these  persons  had  yet  solved  the  problem,  although 
Thimonier  had  so  nearly  succeeded  that  a  mob  of  working- 
men  destroyed  his  machine  for  fear  it  would  take  the  bread  out 
of  their  mouths.  Walter  Hunt  is  the  first  American  who 
brought  the  sewing-machine  problem  nearly  to  the  point  of 
practical  demonstration.  This  was  in  1834.  But  he  stopped  here, 
either  baffled  or  discouraged  by  the  obstacles  he  found  even 
his  ingenuity  unable  to  overcome ;  and  his  machine,  which  em- 
bodied what  is  known  as  the  "  lock-stitch,"  rusted  in  a  garret 
until  a  man  of  clearer  head  and  greater  persistency  had 
worked  out  his  own  idea  independently  of  any  other,  and  so 
gained  the  prize  which  Hunt  was  so  near  grasping.  This  man 
was  Elias  Howe ;  and  it  is  a  pleasure  to  record  that  his  claim 
rests  upon  no  doubtful  or  insecure  foundation,  for  it  has  been 
assailed  by  every  possible  form  of  judicial  inquiry  and  has  come 
out  of  the  ordeal  triumphantly. 

Elias  Howe  was,  in  fact,  a  genius  of  the  first  rank,  —  one  of 
the  kind  that  is  seldom  appreciated  by  its  own  age,  to  whom 
a  man's  personality  is  everything.  No  inventor  ever  endured 


ELIAS    HOWE.  665 

greater  vicissitudes,  or  came  out  of  them  more  triumphantly, 
than  did  Elias  Howe.  The  son  of  a  farmer  who  lived  in  Spen- 
cer, Massachusetts,  he  had  found  his  way  first  to  a  workman's 
bench  in  a  Lowell  machine-shop,  and  then,  in  his  twentieth 
year,  to  a  mathematical-instrument  maker's  in  Boston.  He  had 
married  young,  and  had  a  family  dependent  upon  him  for  their 
daily  bread. 

One  day  Howe  overheard  a  conversation  that  was  going  on 
between  the  master  of  the  shop  and  a  customer  over  a  knitting- 
machine  that  the  latter  had  brought  in  for  examination  and  to 
see  if  its  defects  could  be  remedied.  After  inspecting  the  crude 
and  incomplete  device  before  him  awhile,  the  master  broke 
out  with, — 

"  What  are  you  bothering  with  a  knitting-machine  for?  Why 
don't  you  make  a  sewing-machine?" 

"  I  wish  I  could,"  said  the  other;  "  but  it  can't  be  done." 
"  Oh,  yes,  it  can ;  I  can  make  a  sewing-machine  myself." 
"  Well,  then,"  said  the  customer,  "  you  do  it,  Davis,  and  I  '11 
insure  you  an  independent  fortune." 

The  idea  thus  dropped,  probably  more  in  bravado  than  in 
sober  earnest,  nevertheless  took  firm  hold  on  the  young  jour- 
neyman's mind ;  but  it  was  several  years  yet  before  he  seriously 
applied  himself  to  working  it  out  to  the  exclusion  of  everything 
else.  It  was,  in  fact,  ten  years  after  Hunt  had  constructed  his 
machine  before  Howe  took  hold  of  the  matter  at  all ;  but  we  do 
not  find  that  he  knew  anything  whatever  of  that  most  ingenious 
man's  attempts.  In  December,  1845,  with  the  help  of  a  friend 
who  advanced  the  means  necessary  for  his  own  and  his  family's 
support,  Howe  shut  himself  up  in  a  garret  in  this  friend's  house, 
and  for  six  months  worked  with  dogged  perseverance  over  the 
slowly  developing  mechanism  that  finally  embodied  his  idea  of 
a  sewing-machine.  It  was  finished,  patented,  and  exhibited  in 
successful  operation  to  admiring  crowds.  But  it  found  no  pur- 
chasers. No  one  would  touch  it.  Howe's  partner  became 
disheartened,  and  abandoned  the  enterprise  in  despair;  for  now 
that  the  sewing-machine  was  an  accomplished  fact  it  seemed 
even  more  difficult  to  convince  the  public  of  its  practical  utility 


666  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

than  it  once  had  to  create  the  machine  itself.  This  first  sewing- 
instrument  applied  the  principle  .of  the  curved  needle,  with  the 
eye  near  the  point  that  perforated  the  cloth,  and  of  a  shuttle 
that  by  moving  rapidly  to  and  fro  carried  a  second  thread 
through  the  loop  formed  by  the  needle,  and  in  this  way  made 
the  seam  commonly  known  as  the  "  lock-stitch." 

Convinced  that  nothing  was  to  be  done  in  the  United  States, 
Howe  took  his  machine  to  England,  where  he  was  glad  to  sell  it, 
together  with  the  patent  right  for  Great  Britain,  for  a  paltry 
.£250,  in  order  that  he  might  be  able  to  pay  off  some  of  his 
debts.  The  shrewd  purchaser,  who  was  a  manufacturer  named 
Thomas,  soon  secured  a  patent  both  in  England  and  in  France, 
thus  obtaining  an  absolute  control  of  the  invention  in  those  coun- 
tries, subject  only  to  the  payment  of  a  small  royalty  to  the  in- 
ventor. The  money  Howe  had  thus  procured  was  soon  gone, 
and  he  then  had  to  seek  employment  as  a  means  of  livelihood. 

Again  Howe  became  a  workman  dependent  upon  the  labor 
of  his  hands ;  but  even  this  resource  so  often  failed  him  that  he 
was  forced  to  borrow  small  sums  —  on  one  occasion  a  shilling  — 
to  keep  himself  from  starving.  Howe  finally  got  a  passage 
home  to  the  United  States,  where  he  arrived  destitute  of  every- 
thing but  the  pluck  that  had  never  deserted  him  even  when  he 
did  not  know  where  his  next  meal  was  coming  from.  To  his 
surprise,  and  not  altogether  to  his  delight,  he  found  that  in  his 
absence  the  sewing-machine  had  steadily  grown  in  the  appre- 
ciation of  the  public,  and  was  at  that  time  employing  all  the  re- 
sources of  other  skilful  inventors,  who  aimed  to  bring  it  to  a 
still  higher  state  of  perfection.  From  the  piece  of  ingenious 
mechanism  of  problematical  worth  at  which  it  had  first  been 
estimated,  the  sewing-machine  had  now  advanced  to  a  position 
of  admitted  utility;  and  this  fact,  in  a  country  where  manual 
labor  of  every  kind  was  so  dear  as  it  was  in  the  United  States, 
assured  its  success  beyond  a  doubt.  This  too  stimulated  the 
exertions  of  others  besides  Howe  to  obtain  control  of  the  manu- 
facture and  sale  in  the  United  States.  Howe  found  his  rights 
endangered.  In  Mr.  I.  M.  Singer,  Howe  encountered  his  most 
energetic  and  formidable  competitor.  The  courts  were  appealed 


ELIAS    HOWE.  667 

to.  They  decided  that  Elias  Howe's  claim  to  be  the  original 
inventor  of  the  sewing-machine  was  good  and  valid ;  and  from 
that  day  the  struggling  mechanic,  the  man  of -brain  and  pluck, 
began  to  receive  the  reward  of  genius. 

It  is  not  our  purpose  to  write  the  history  of  sewing-machines 
further  than  to  record  these  incidents  in  the  life  of  Elias  Howe. 
In  a  few  years  he  rose  from  poverty  and  obscurity  to  affluence 
and  the  possession  of  a  great  name ;  but  even  the  greatness  of 
the  reward  does  not  seem  too  much  in  view  of  the  benefits  se- 
cured to  mankind,  or  the  obstacles  that  had  to  be  overcome 
before  these  results  could  be  attained.  It  is  characteristic  of 
nearly  all  really  great  inventions  that  they  have  occupied  the 
minds  of  several  different  persons  at  the  same  period  of  time, 
but  it  is  seldom  indeed  that  the  rights  of  a  claimant  have  been 
so  universally  conceded  as  they  have  in  the  case  of  Elias  Howe 
and  his  wonderful  little  mechanism.  Nor  is  there  a  particle  of 
evidence  going  to  prove  that  Howe  pursued  any  other  plans 
than  such  as  were  the  coinage  of  his  own  fertile  and  inventive 
brain. 

During  the  great  civil  war  between  the  North  and  the  South, 
Mr.  Howe's  zealous  patriotism  led  him  to  enlist  as  a  private  sol- 
dier in' the  Seventeenth  Connecticut  Volunteers.  To  this  example 
of  what  a  citizen  in  any  station  owes  to  his  country  whenever  that 
country  may  demand  the  sacrifice  from  him,  Howe  also  added 
the  voluntary  use  of  his  means  for  the  payment  of  the  regi- 
ment. He  served  until  failing  health  compelled  his  retirement 
from  the  ranks ;  but  this  simple  incident  has  conferred  upon  the 
eminent  inventor  and  millionnaire  an  honor  greater  in  its  way 
than  any  he  may  have  derived  from  the  ribbon  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor,  or  from  those  other  decorations  that  marked  the  appre- 
ciation of  foreign  governments  for  his  achievements  in  the 
domain  of  mechanical  science. 


668  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 


CYRUS    HALL    McCORMICK. 

[BORN  1809.    DIED  1884.] 

A  N  English  journal  frankly  gives  credit  to  American  genius 
•£*•  for  at  least  fifteen  inventions  and  discoveries  which,  it 
says,  have  been  adopted  all  over  the  world.  These  triumphs 
of  American  genius  are  thus  enumerated:  First,  the  cotton  gin; 
second,  the  steamboat ;  third,  the  grass-mower  and  grain-reaper ; 
fourth,  the  rotary  printing-press ;  fifth,  the  planing-machine ; 
sixth,  the  hot-air  or  caloric  engine;  seventh,  the  sewing-ma- 
chine; eighth,  the  india-rubber  industry;  ninth,  the  machine 
for  manufacturing  horse-shoes ;  tenth,  the  sand-blast  for  carv- 
ing ;  eleventh,  the  gauge-lathe ;  twelfth,  the  grain-elevator ; 
thirteenth,  artificial  ice  manufacture  on  a  large  scale ;  four- 
teenth, the  electro-magnet  and  its  practical  application ;  fif- 
teenth, the  composing-machine  for  printers.  To  these  should 
be  added  the  improvements  in  practical  telegraphy,  the  tele- 
phone, and  the  electric  light;  and  even  then  the  catalogue  will 
be  far  from  complete.  The  most  suggestive  thought,  as  related 
to  the  world's  progress,  is  that  a  single  century  covers  the  whole 
list  just  enumerated,  while  a  majority  of  the  inventions  have 
seen  the  light  within  half  a  century.  Americans  may  well  point 
with  pride  to  a  record  at  once  so  remarkable  and  so  honorable 
in  a  country  which  has  only  just  begun  to  measure  its  own 
achievements  with  those  that  the  Old  World  is  producing  as 
the  fruit  of  centuries  of  preparation  of  the  ground.  All  eyes 
are  now  turned  to  the  future  with  the  conviction  that  it  will 
show  no  less  beneficent  results  to  human  progress  than  the 
present  has  done.  In  the  meantime  miracles  are  being  per- 
formed under  our  eyes  every  day,  we  might  almost  say  every 
hour. 


CYRUS    HALL    McCORMICK. 


CYRUS   HALL   McCORMICK.  6/1 

Different  inventions  possess,  of  course,  a  relative  importance. 
Those  which  add  to  the  material  wealth  of  nations  are  unques- 
tionably greater  than  those  that  contribute  exclusively  to  the 
comfort  or  convenience  of  mankind.  By  common  consent  that  * 
man  is  a  benefactor  who  has  made  two  blades  of  grass  grow 
where  only  one  grew  before.  We  need  not  pursue  so  sugges- 
tive a  simile.  Of  the  class  of  inventors  who  create  national 
wealth  we  have  had  in  the  United  States  two  notable  examples, 
namely,  Eli  Whitney  and  Cyrus  Hall  McCormick.  What  WThit- 
ney's  gin  did  for  the  South  has  already  been  shown  by  the  most 
irrefragable  testimony.  What  McCormick's  reaper  was  doing 
for  the  North  so  long  ago  as  1859  was  estimated  by  the  Hon. 
Reverdy  Johnson  to  equal  "  an  annual  income  to  the  whole  coun- 
try of  fifty-five  millions  of  dollars  at  least,  which  must  increase 
through  all  time ;  "  and  William  H.  Seward  said  that  McCor- 
mick's invention  had  advanced  the  line  of  civilization  westward 
thirty  miles  each  year.  In  this  connection  it  is  interesting  to 
note  that  while  the  North  gave  to  the  South  the  cotton-gin,  the 
South  has  given  to  the  North  the  reaping-machine  ;  but  to  in- 
ventions of  such  universal  utility  as  these  are,  neither  section 
may  lay  exclusive  claim,  —  for  both  the  gin  and  the  reaper  have 
become  the  common  property  of  nations,  and  each  has  gone 
into  and  is  doing  its  appointed  work  in  the  remote  parts  of  the 
earth  in  the  interest  of  the  great  common  weal. 

We  find  that  the  idea  of  harvesting  grain  in  some  more  ex- 
peditious way  than  by  hand  labor  goes  back  to  a  remote  period ; 
and  we  are  also  assured  that  certain  crude  efforts  to  construct 
machines  for  the  purpose  have  tangible  record  in  the  patent- 
offices  of  European  countries  as  well  as  in  our  own.  Many 
may  have  been  engaged  for  a  long  time  in  unsuccessful  or  only 
partially  successful  attempts  to  bring  their  schemes  to  perfec- 
tion, who  have  come  before  the  public  to  contend  for  the  merit 
justly  due  to  the  more  fortunate  or  more  skilful  inventor.  But 
such  failures  become  only  more  conspicuous  by  a  comparison 
with  achieved  success.  The  world  extends  its  sympathy  to 
baffled  or  half-successful  inventors,  but  it  recognizes  and  re- 
serves its  rewards  only  for  accomplished  facts.  To  demand 

43 


672  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

recognition  for  a  failure  is  to  belittle  the  efforts  of  genius  by 
claiming  distinction  for  mediocrity.  The  reaping-machine  is  no 
exception  to  the  history  of  every  really  great  invention.  It  has 
been  claimed  for  the  unknown,  the  unpractical,  and,  above  all, 
for  the  unsuccessful  competitor  whose  work,  be  it  said,  has  been 
brought  to  notice  chiefly  through  the  efforts  of  a  mind  greater 
than  his  own. 

Cyrus  Hall  McCormick,  the  inventor  of  the  reaping-machine, 
and  the  subject  of  this  brief  sketch,  was  born  at  Walnut  Grove, 
Rockbridge  County,  Virginia,  February  15,  1809,  and  was  there- 
fore, at  the  time  of  his  death,  in  his  seventy-sixth  year.  His 
parents  were  of  Scotch-Irish  descent,  a  race  noted  for  energy, 
sturdy  independence,  and  thrift.  Young  McCormick's  inventive 
genius  developed  early  in  life.  This  trait  of  character  he  seems 
to  have  inherited  from  his  father,  Robert  McCormick,  who, 
though  a  planter,  .owned  several  saw  and  grist  mills,  and  kept  a 
carpenter's  and  blacksmith's  shop,  in  which  were  made  and 
repaired  nearly  all  the  tools  and  machinery  required  on  the 
farm.  He  was  the  inventor  and  patentee  of  several  valuable 
machines  for  threshing,  hydraulic  hemp-breaking,  etc.  In  1816 
he  had  devised  a  reaping-machine  with  which  he  experimented 
in  the  harvest  of  that  year.  Disappointed  in  his  experiments, 
he  laid  it  aside,  and  did  not  resume  work  on  it  again  for 
fifteen  years.  He  then  added  some  improvements ;  but  on 
testing  it  again  in  a  field  of  grain,  he  became  so  thoroughly 
convinced  that  its  principle  was  wrong  that  he  abandoned  it  as 
a  Utopian  idea,  just  as  all  his  predecessors  in  reaper-inventing 
had  done  before  him. 

During  these  years  young  Cyrus  was  improving  his  time  in  be- 
coming an  adept  in  handling  tools  and  in  the  study  of  machinery, 
while  assisting  his  father  to  work  out  his  inventions.  At  fifteen 
the  lad  had  turned  his  own  mechanical  training  to  such  purpose 
as  to  contrive  a  grain  cradle,  and,  five  years  later,  a  hillside  plough, 
which  was  the  first  self-sharpening  plough  ever  invented. 

Very  much  against  his  father's  judgment,  young  McCormick 
next  turned  his  attention  to  the  abandoned  reaper.  Avoiding 
the  errors  that  had  proved  fatal  to  all  previous  attempts,  he  de- 


CYRUS   HALL  McCORMICK.  673 

vised  a  machine  wholly  unlike  anything  that  had  been  pro- 
jected, or,  so  far  as  he  knew,  even  ^thought  of.  As  one  by  one 
the  problems  involved  presented  themselves  to  his  mind,  his 
ingenuity  provided  for  them.  First  came  the  cutting-sickle, 
with  its  fast  alternating  and  slow  advancing  motions;  second, 
the  receiving  platform  upon  which  the  cut  grain  should  fall  and 
be  cared  for ;  third,  the  reel  to  gather  and  hold  up  the  grain 
in  a  body.  These  three  salient  points  being  decided  upon,  it 
remained  to  bring  them  into  harmony  as  co-operating  parts  of 
one  machine ;  and  here  the  inventor's  training  in  his  father's 
workshops  became  of  great  use  to  him.  Perseverance  finally 
enabled  him  to  work  out  the  various  mechanical  combinations 
that  he  had  outlined  in  his  mind,  and  it  was  then  a  compara- 
tively easy  matter  to  mount  the  machine  on  wheels,  which  by 
intermediate  gearing  gave  the  required  motion  to  the  sickle 
and  reel.  These  successive  steps  were  taken  little  by  little, 
but  they  were  taken  surely  and  upon  sound  judgment.  In 
1831  McCormick  had  the  great  satisfaction  of  completing  with 
his  own  hands  and  by  his  own  unaided  ingenuity,  and  of  suc- 
cessfully testing  in  the  harvest  field,  the  first  practical  reaping- 
machine  that  the  world  ever  saw.  It  is  evident,  however,  that 
McCormick  at  twenty-two  had  formed  no  adequate  idea  of  the 
value  of  his  invention ;  for  we  now  find  him  laying  it  aside  in 
order  to  go  into  the  iron-smelting  business,  which  he  considered 
as  opening  a  broader  and  more  lucrative  field  to  his  ambition. 
The  panic  of  1837,  however,  brought  financial  ruin  to  the  new 
enterprise.  McCormick's  business  partner  secured  his  own  pri- 
vate property,  leaving  the  smelting  business  and  the  junior  part- 
ner to  their  fate.  It  is  most  honorable  to  McCormick  that  in  a 
situation  at  once  so  trying  and  so  disheartening  as  this  proved 
to  be,  he  with  rare  integrity  and  determination  set  to  work  pay- 
ing off  his  own  debts,  though  it  was  at  the  sacrifice  of  every- 
thing he  possessed. 

But  in  the  light  of  present  knowledge  we  may  consider  what 
McCormick  no  doubt  felt  to  be  a  most  cruel  reverse  of  fortune, 
if  not  ruin  to  his  future  prospects  in  life,  as  one  of  those  bless- 
ings in  disguise,  which  men  indeed  do  not  know  how  to  accept, 


674  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

but  are  nevertheless  wisely  ordered,  to  bring  out  the  best  that  is 
in  them.  In  the  discarded  reaper  McCormick  had  a  resource 
both  congenial  and  stimulating.  To  that  he  therefore  turned 
his  attention,  and  from  that  day  onward  we  have  only  to  chron- 
icle his  successes. 

In  1834  his  first  patent  was  secured,  when  he  began  the 
manufacture  of  the  machine  on  a  very  limited  scale,  cautiously 
feeling  his  way  with  it,  as  he  went  along,  while  engaged  in  other 
pursuits,  for  he  had  not  yet  fully  realized  the  value  of  his  inven- 
tion. A  second  patent  was  taken  out  for  important  improve- 
ments in  1845.  Additional  patents  issued  in  1847  and  1848  for 
further  improvements.  In  the  year  last  mentioned  seven  hundred 
machines  were  built  and  sold.  Other  valuable  patented  improve- 
ments have  since  been  added.  When  McCormick  began  his  ex- 
periments the  harvesting  of  a  single  acre  was  considered  a  fair 
day's  work  for  one  man.  The  reaping-machine  as  now  perfected 
is  capable  of  cutting  and  binding  in  sheaves,  under  the  manage- 
ment of  a  girl  or  a  boy  having  skill  enough  to  drive  a  pair  of 
horses,  at  the  rate  of  two  acres  per  hour.  His  earlier  patents 
having  expired,  a  refusal  by  the  Patent  Office  to  renew  them 
•  threw  open  to  competition  all  the  leading  features  of  the  inven- 
tion. The  expiration  of  the  first  patent — that  of  1834 — hap- 
pened at  a  most  critical  moment  for  McCormick,  who  was  then 
devoting  himself  to  the  introduction  of  his  first  machines ;  but 
disappointments  like  these,  or  perplexities  incident  to  infringe- 
ments of  his  patents  by  rival  manufacturers,  seem  only  in  the 
case  of  McCormick  to  have  produced  still  greater  exertions 
followed  by  greater  successes.  Allowing  them  free  use  of  his 
expired  patents,  he  still  kept  ahead  of  his  competitors.  The  in- 
ventor of  the  sewing-machine  had  been  able  to  secure  a  judicial 
confirmation  of  his  rights  to  the  principle  of  this  wonderful 
mechanism,  although  the  greatest  improvements  in  it  had  not 
come  from  his  hand  or  brain.  McCormick,  as  we  have  seen, 
failed  to  obtain  an  equally  equitable  decision  in  his  favor,  and 
for  the  reason  that  his  inventions  were  too  valuable,  in  the 
opinion  of  the  Patent  authorities,  to  be  the  exclusive  property 
of  any  one  man. 


CYRUS    HALL   McCORMICK.  675 

In  1845  Mr.  McCormick  had  removed  to  Cincinnati,  Ohio, 
for  the  purpose  of  establishing  himself  there;  but  with  that 
keen  foresight  so  characteristic  of  him,  he  was  among  the  first 
to  see  the  advantages  which  Chicago  even  at  that  early  day 
possessed  for  becoming  the  commercial  centre  of  the  West.  He 
accordingly  removed  there  in  1847,  and  began  the  erection  ot 
the  first  reaper  works. 

When  the  success  of  the  machine  was  assured,  Mr.  McCor- 
mick spent  much  of  his  time  abroad,  in  bringing  his  machine  to 
the  notice  of  European  agriculturists.  In  1851  he  attended  the 
World's  Fair  in  London  with  his  machine.  During  the  early 
weeks  of  the  exhibition  it  was  the  subject  of  much  ridicule  on 
the  part  of  those  who  knew  nothing  of  its  character  or  its  capabil- 
ities. Even  the  "  London  Times,"  in  an  article  casting  contempt 
on  the  poor  show  made  in  the  American  Department,  character- 
ized the  reaper  as  a  monstrosity,  something  like  a  cross  between 
an  Astley  chariot  and  a  flying-machine. 

A  few  weeks  later,  when  the  machine  was  practically  tested  in 
the  English  harvest  fields,  ridicule  was  turned  into  admiration ; 
and  those  journals  which,  like  the  "  Times,"  had  sneered  at  the 
reaper  on  account  of  its  queer  looks,  could  not  now  say  enough 
in  its  praise.  The  "  Thunderer  "  declared  it  equal  in  value  to  the 
entire  exhibition.  McCormick  suddenly  found  himself  famous. 
His  reaper  received  the  grand  Council  medal  of  the  exhibition. 
The  press  everywhere  rang  with  his  praise,  and  he  was  cheered, 
feasted,  and  toasted  wherever  he  went.  Greater  honor  has  never 
been  awarded  to  an  American  inventor.'  His  was  the  rare  grat- 
ification of  having  conquered  the  prejudice  against  everything 
American  by  exhibiting  in  practical  operation  the  most  skilfully 
contrived,  the  most  original,  and  the  most  useful  contribution 
to  the  needs  of  the  great  agricultural  classes.  It  is  true  that 
McCormick  had  for  some  time  longer  to  contend  with  efforts  to 
belittle  his  invention  on  the  part  of  those  who  could  not  be 
reconciled  to  the  idea  that  this  unknown  and  unheralded  Amer- 
ican had  carried  off  the  honors  of  an  exhibition  that  was  ex- 
pected to  assert  the  superiority  of  British  inventors,  and  so  had 
secured  the  prestige  for  his  own  country.  But  if  John  Bull  is 


676  OUR   GREAT  BENEFACTORS. 

slow  to  admit  himself  vanquished,  he  is  at  least  hearty  in  mak- 
ing due  acknowledgment  when  fully  convinced  of  error.  The 
achievement  of  McCormick  seems  all  the  greater  when  we  con- 
sider the  nature  of  the  obstacles  which  had  to  be  overcome 
before  the  merits  of  his  reaper  were  fully  recognized  in  Great 
Britain.  In  the  face  of  much  carping  criticism  the  inventor 
pursued  the  even  tenor  of  his  way,  exhibiting,  explaining,  and 
vindicating  his  machine  from  attack  with  a  persistency,  a  confi- 
dence in  the  great  merit  of  his  creation,  that  cannot  fail  to  win 
our  respect  for  those  resources  of  mind  that  were  always  equal  to 
the  demands  made  upon  him. 

At  subsequent  International  Expositions  —  such  as  those  at 
Paris  in  1855;  London,  1862;  Hamburg,  1863;  Paris,  1867; 
Vienna,  1873;  Philadelphia  (Centennial),  1876;  Paris,  1878; 
Royal  Agricultural  Society,  England,  1878;  Melbourne,  1880; 
Royal  Agricultural  Society,  England,  1881 ;  Christ  Church,  New 
Zealand,  1882;  Grosetto,  Italy;  and  at  Louisville,  1883  —  Mc- 
Cormick was  equally  triumphant.  In  addition  to  these  high 
honors,  often  won  in  opposition  to  all  the  contesting  machines  of 
Europe  and  America,  Mr.  McCormick  was  decorated  with  the 
Cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  at  Paris  in  1867,  and  at  the  suc- 
ceeding Exposition  of  1878  further  honored  with  the  decoration 
of  Officer  of  the  Legion  of  Honor ;  and  he  was  elected  a  member 
of  the  Academy  of  Sciences  in  the  Department  of  Rural  Econ- 
omy, as  "  having  done  more  for  the  cause  of  agriculture  than 
any  other  living  man." 

Unlike  most  inventors,  Mr.  McCormick  has  been  noted  for 
the  energy  and  shrewdness  of  an  eminently  successful  business 
man,  having  in  himself  the  rare  combination  of  inventive  in- 
genuity, mechanical  skill,  and  tact  to  manage  a  business  that 
has  now  been  extended  all  over  the  world. 

In  1858  Mr.  McCormick  married  a  daughter  of  the  late 
Melzar  Fowler,  a  niece  of  Judge  E.  G.  Merrick,  of  Detroit,  — 
a  most  beautiful,  accomplished,  and  refined  lady,  whose  gentle- 
ness, charity,  and  good  deeds  adorn  the  position  she  occupies. 
Three  sons  and  two  daughters  complete  the  family  circle.  The 
eldest  son,  C.  H.  McCormick,  is  in  his  twenty-fourth  year,  and 


CYRUS    HALL   McCORMICK.  677 

is  assisting  in  the  management  and  control  of  the  immense  busi- 
ness interests  left  by  his  father. 

It  is  gratifying  to  write  that  some  part  of  the  wealth  which 
Mr.  McCormick  amassed  from  his  inventions,  in  the  course 
of  a  long  and  arduous  business  career,  has  taken  the  direction 
of  practical  philanthropy.  Like  the  late  George  Peabody,  the 
subject  of  our  biography  preferred  to  give  during  his  life- 
time, to  the  end  that  he  might  see,  or  better  direct,  the  fulfil- 
ment of  those  benevolent  objects  which  his  philanthropy  aimed 
to  bring  about.  He  was  the  founder  of  the  Presbyterian  Theo- 
logical Seminary  of  the  Northwest,  at  Chicago,  having  at  the 
start  donated  $100,000  to  endow  a  professorship  in  that  insti- 
tution ;  and  during  the  years  of  its  early  struggles,  before  its 
ultimate  success  and  permanency  were  secured,  his  purse  was 
ever  open  to  replenish  its  empty  treasury,  until  he  had  nearly 
trebled  the  amount  of  his  original  donation.  He  also  liber- 
ally remembered  Washington  College,  and  other  institutions 
of  his  native  State  of  Virginia.  The  city  of  Chicago,  which 
was  for  thirty-seven  years  Mr.  McCormick's  adopted  home, 
owes  to  him  no  small  share  of  her  great  prosperity,  as  well 
as  her  increasing  prestige  at  home  and  abroad.  He  had 
always  been  actively  identified  with  the  building  up  of  this 
almost  phenomenal  American  city ;  and  after  the  disastrous  fire 
of  1 87 1,  by  which  his  own  extensive  works  were  laid  in  ashes 
with  the  rest  of  the  city,  he  was  one  of  the  first  to  commence 
building  again,  thus  inspiring  confidence  in  others  to  follow  his 
example.  The  new  works  occupy  a  tract  of  twenty-five  acres. 
They  are  substantially  built,  and  are  furnished  with  every  appli- 
ance requisite  for  turning  out  50,000  machines  annually,  —  that 
enormous  figure,  showing  an  increase  in  ten  years  of  32,000  and 
in  fifteen  years  of  40,000  machines  manufactured  and  sold, 
having  been  reached  in  1883. 

To  show  what  the  reaping-machine  has  done  for  the  age  we 
live  in,  and  more  particularly  for  the  Great  West,  would  be  our 
most  congenial  task,  were  not  the  facts  within  the  recollection 
of  every  man  living.  It  is  an  amazing  record,  one  unmatched 
by  any  similar  achievement  even  in  this  age  of  marvels.  Old 


678  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

methods  have  been  revolutionized.  What  was  an  uninhabited 
and  unproductive  region  forty  years  ago  has  been  converted 
into  the  great  granary  of  the  world,  with  a  population  of  mil- 
lions, a  thrift  as  boundless  as  its  resources,  and  a  weight  in  the 
nation  that  is  already  turning  the  scale  against  the  older  States 
of  the  East  as  the  seat  of  power.  "  Tickle  me  with  a  hoe  and 
I  laugh  with  a  harvest,"  is  the  promise  held  out  to  those  farm- 
ers who  have  delved  all  their  lives  in  less  kindly  soils  for  a  bare 
subsistence.  In  the  East  small  farms  are  the  rule ;  in  the  West 
they  are  the  exception.  And  as  the  ability  to  cultivate  large 
tracts  —  sometimes  equalling  in  size  a  European  principality  — 
comes  wholly  from  the  introduction  of  improved  machinery, 
so  the  work  of  estimating  the  past  and  present  worth  of  a 
machine  like  McCormick's  Reaper,  which  is  not  only  labor- 
saving  but  labor-extending  as  well,  is  also  the  history  of  the 
marvellous  development  of  a  dozen  or  more  new  States  and 
Territories  of  the  Great  West. 

Even  the  most  superficial  study  of  the  character  of  Cyrus 
H.  McCormick  shows  us  a  man  who  would  unquestionably 
have  made  his  mark  upon  the  age  in  any  calling.  A  closer 
look  forcibly  suggests  that  admirable  relation  which  such  men 
hold  to  certain  eras  of  extraordinary  progress  in  the  world's 
history.  In  McCormick  we  discover  an  inventor  by  heredity, 
but  pre-eminently  an  inventor  of  the  kind  in  whom  an  idea  once 
seized  upon  becomes  the  fixed  purpose  of  a  lifetime, — an  in- 
ventor who  to  superior  intelligence  unites  the  power  of  an  iron 
will  to  achieve,  and  a  certain  grandeur  of  determination  which 
knows  no  such  word  as  fail.  For  a  man  so  endowed  one  of 
the  highest  prizes  that  the  world  bestows  upon,  the  fortunate 
few  might  easily  be  predicted.  It  follows  that  in  his  lifetime 
McCormick  reaped  his  abundant  reward,  both  of  honors  and  of 
more  substantial  wealth.  But  the  world,  which  sees  only  the 
accomplished  fact  in  its  entirety,  takes  little  note  of  the  long 
and  weary  period  of  toil,  the  most  exacting  and  unremitting,  to 
the  inventor's  brain,  that  has  preceded  the  grand  result.  In  a 
word,  Mr.  McCormick  is  a  notable  example  of  the  typical,  self- 
made  American  of  the  nineteenth  century,  whose  achievements 


L.  J.   M.   DAGUERRE, 


L.  J.  M.  DAGUERRE.  68 1 

in  the  interests  of  human  progress  have  produced  effects  the 
most  beneficent  to  mankind,  and  are  therefore  not  for  an  age 
but  for  all  time. 


L.  J.  M.  DAGUERRE. 

[BORN  1789.    DIED  1851.] 

A  T  the  session  of  the  French  Academy  of  Sciences,  held 
**•  in  January,  1839,  M.  Arago  announced  the  remarkable 
discovery  made  by  their  countryman,  M.  Louis  Jacques  Da- 
guerre,  by  which  the  long-sought  method  of  fixing  the  images 
of  the  camera  obscura  had  at  length  been  perfected.  M.  Da- 
guerre  had  explained  in  advance  confidentially  to  M.  Arago 
the  processes  by  which  this  result  had  been  secured ;  so  that 
the  able  and  learned  speaker  was  able  to  give  a  full  and  lucid 
account  of  this  most  interesting,  admirable,  and  valuable  achieve- 
ment in  the  interest  of  both  science  and  art,  —  for  to  these  twin 
branches  its  benefits  were  at  first  believed  most  to  accrue.  But 
even  M.  Arago's  forecast,  sound  and  discriminating  as  it  was,  fell 
far  short  of  developing  the  ultimate  value  of  Daguerre's  dis- 
covery to  mankind ;  for  instead  of  its  inuring  exclusively  to 
the  benefit  of  science  or  art,  or  of  either  of  them,  it  speedily 
passed  into  the  possession  of  the  whole  civilized  world,  and 
became  domesticated  in  every  household  to  whose  treasures 
of  affection  or  memory  it  had  contributed  so  priceless  a  gift. 
Still,  even  within  the  limitations  which  were  supposed  at  first  to 
govern  it,  the  discovery  produced  a  startling  impression  upon 
the  public.  Daguerre  had  gone  no  further  at  this  time  than  to 
reproduce  upon  his  plates  such  architectural  objects  as  were 
familiar  to  the  Parisians,  and  might  therefore  be  easily  recog- 
nized ;  but  this  feat,  affording  as  it  did  the  best  test  of  the 
fidelity  of  Daguerre's  processes,  was  quite  enough  to  establish 
the  fact  that  a  great  discovery  had  been  made,  and  to  fix  a 


682  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

starting-point  for  the   astonishing  development   that  has  suc- 
ceeded Daguerre's  original  efforts. 

Let  us  trace  the  progress  of  the  discovery  a  little,  in  order 
to  show  how  far  Daguerre  may  be  entitled  to  the  name  that 
we  have  assigned  to  him  of  a  benefactor  of  the  race. 

It  is  about  two  centuries  ago  since  a  Neapolitan  scientist 
by  the  name  of  Giovanni  Battista  Porta  discovered  the  camera 
obscura,  or  dark  chamber,  in  which  the  images  projected  by  a 
sun-ray  upon  the  dark  background  of  the  chamber  were  re- 
produced with  the  utmost  fidelity.  But  this  was  considered  as 
no  more  than  a  curious  phenomenon,  and  as  such,  attracted 
much  attention  from  learned  and  unlearned.  There  the  in- 
vention rested  until  Wedgwood,  as  we  have  stated  in  our 
sketch  of  him,  attempted  the  transfer  of  objects,  and  also  ot 
paintings,  sculptures,  and  engravings  to  his  ware.  Davy  also 
made  some  experiments  with  the  same  general  view;  but 
neither  succeeded  in  obtaining  the  results  he  aimed  at  for 
want  of  knowledge  of  the  proper  chemical  substances  to  hold 
the  pictures  he  had  obtained,  which  faded  or  turned  black  as 
soon  as  exposed  to  the  light.  The  matter  was,  however,  too 
interesting  to  be  dropped.  In  1814  a  Frenchman  named 
Niepce  turned  his  attention  to  the  same  subject,  pursuing  it 
indefatigably  until  he  had  worked  out  his  own  ideas ;  and 
it  is  to  him,  more  than  to  any  other,  Daguerre  excepted,. 
that  the  final  and  signal  success  of  the  great  invention  is  due. 
Niepce's  first  efforts  were  directed  to  the  fixing  of  silhouettes 
by  chemical  substances.  For  years  he  pursued  his  favorite 
idea  until  he  had  perfected  a  process  by  which  he  was  able  to- 
do  what  Wedgwood  and  Davy  had  failed  to  accomplish ; 
namely,  to  copy  engravings  by  the  aid  of  the  camera.  Up  to 
this  point,  where  Niepce  was  joined  by  Daguerre  as  co-laborer 
in  the  purpose  to  work  out  the  discovery  to  a  practical  so- 
lution, no  one  seems  to  have  heard  anything  of  Daguerre  in 
connection  with  it,  although  M.  Arago  asserts  that  Daguerre 
had  for  several  years  been  assiduously  engaged  upon  the 
same  thing  as  Niepce,  each  being  ignorant  of  the  other's 
purpose. 


L.  J.  M.   DAGUERRE.  683 

Daguerre  was  born  at  Cormeilles  in  1789.  From  infancy 
he  showed  a  predilection  for  designing.  He  came  to  Paris, 
like  so  many  other  young  men  of  talent,  in  search  of  the  career 
that  the  great  metropolis  had  opened  to  his  ardent  imagina- 
tion. His  inclination  for  drawing,  the  proficiency  he  soon 
showed  in  that  particular  branch  of  art,  procured  him  a  situa- 
tion as  scene  painter  and  decorator  in  the  theatres  of  Paris; 
and  in  this  profession  he  rapidly  took  a  leading  place.  Da- 
guerre's  inventive  genius  soon  asserted  itself.  He  introduced 
many  pleasing  illusions  by  means  of  his  art,  to  the  wonder  and 
delight  of  the  Parisians ;  but  his  greatest  success  as  a  painter 
came  when  he  opened  to  the  public  his  diorama,  which  was  at 
that  time  a  novelty  in  scenic  representation.  It  had  an  immense 
popularity.  The  arrangement  was  a  circular  hall  having  a  mov- 
able floor,  which,  by  turning  with  the  spectators  upon  it,  trans- 
ferred them  without  inconvenience  before  the  successive  series 
of  pictures  with  marvellous  realistic  effect.  The  diorama  was, 
however,  destroyed  by  fire. 

At  this  epoch,  therefore,  we  find  that  Daguerre  was  an  artist 
of  merit  in  his  particular  line  who  had  made  a  study  of,  and 
had  introduced  many  novel  optical  effects  into,  scenic  display 
in  the  theatre.  His  native  ingenuity  and  invention  had  been 
shown  too  in  working  out  the  various  improvements  introduced 
by  him ;  but  we  are  absolutely  without  knowledge  respecting 
his  earlier  experiments  with  the  camera  obsctira,  or  of  the 
reasons  which  had  induced  him  to  set  about  the  elucidation 
of  its  problems  with  all  the  energy  of  his  nature.  It  is  certain, 
only,  that  he  had  been  some  time  at  work  over  them,  when  he 
heard  of  M.  Niepce,  whom  he  immediately  sought  out,  and 
with  whom  he  subsequently  formed  a  partnership  for  perfect- 
ing the  discovery  upon  which  both  were  intent.  This  instru- 
ment, which  was  signed  in  1836,  was  duly  recorded,  and  is 
in  effect  an  admission  by  Niepce  of  Daguerre's  claims  at  that 
particular  stage  of  the  discovery,  since  it  is  hardly  to  be  sup- 
posed that  Niepce  would  have  admitted  Daguerre  to  an  equal 
share  of  the  benefits  of  his  own  protracted  experiments  unless 
corresponding  advantage  to  himself  had  been  made  clear  to 


684  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

his  mind.  We  state  this  because  it  is  asserted  that  while  Niepce 
disclosed  his  processes  to  Daguerre,  there  is  nothing  to  show 
what  Daguerre  offered  him  in  return.  It  was  understood  and 
agreed  that  the  new  discovery  should  bear  the  names  of  both 
the  contracting  parties ;  but  in  consequence  of  a  condition  im- 
posed by  M.  Daguerre  himself,  the  new  process  took  the  name 
of  Daguerre  only,  —  hence,  Daguerreotype.  Niepce  died  in  1833, 
six  years  before  the  discovery  was  made  public.  It  aroused  a 
veritable  enthusiasm.  At  the  instance  of  the  Academy  the 
process  was  purchased  by  the  State ;  and  then,  in  a  spirit  most 
honorable  to  the  nation,  it  was  given  to  the  public,  —  Daguerre 
receiving  an  annuity  of  6,000  francs,  and  Niepce  fils,  4,000  francs. 
Daguerre  continued  to  devote  himself  to  the  improvement  of 
his  processes.  In  the  meantime  an  Englishman  named  Talbot 
had  nearly  secured  the  result  achieved  by  Daguerre,  and  now 
appeared  as  his  competitor  for  the  honor  of  the  discovery. 
His  claims,  however,  were  not  allowed  by  the  French  Academy, 
to  which  body  Mr.  Talbot  had  submitted  them,  although  his 
process  differed  from  that  of  Daguerre  in  that  Talbot  took 
his  images  on  chemically  prepared  paper  instead  of  metal. 
In  1851,  when  M.  Daguerre  died,  the  art  of  photography  was 
still  in  its  infancy ;  but  under  the  impetus  of  publicity,  it  has 
since  made  great  progress.  Not  only  his  own  process,  but 
that  of  Talbot,  has  been  entirely  superseded  by  the  improve- 
ments of  Mr.  Scott  Archer,  of  England,  glass  being  now  used 
to  receive  the  image  instead  of  metal  or  paper,  thus  securing 
almost  indefinite  duplication  of  a  subject.  It  should  be  stated, 
however,  that  Dr.  J.  W.  Draper,  of  New  York,  was  the  first  to 
obtain  with  enlarged  lenses  portraits  by  the  process  of  Daguerre. 
From  every  point  of  view,  the  grand  discovery  of  Daguerre  is 
one  of  the  most  useful  that  has  signalized  the  century  we  live 
in ;  and  its  possibilities  seem  all  the  greater  when  we  consider 
its  earlier  achievements  in  the  light  of  present  adaptability 
to  the  multitude  of  purposes  for  which  it  may  be  employed. 
If  printing  is  the  art  preservative  of  all  arts,  photography 
merits  a  still  higher  place,  since  it  preserves  for  us  an  exact 
counterpart  of  the  object  itself,  while  printing  at  most  secures 


_v     ^"^Sas.  y^T^^S  ^* 


WILLIAM    T.    G.    MORTON. 


WILLIAM   T.   G.   MORTON.  687 

only  a  history  or  a  description,  more  or  less  accurate  accord- 
ing to  the  ability  of  the  writer  to  convey  the  impression  he 
may  have  received.  As  a  disseminator  of  the  great  works  of 
art,  photography  has  already  proved  a  valuable  means  of  art 
education  to  the  masses. 


WILLIAM    T.   G.    MORTON. 

[BORN  1819.    DIED  1868.] 

"\T  7E  have  once  more  to  repeat,  what  must  have  become 
*  *  already  apparent  to  the  reader  of  the  foregoing  pages, 
that  those  discoveries  from  which  mankind  has  derived  the 
greatest  benefits  are  as  often  the  result  of  some  quick  grasp  of 
principles,  followed  by  decisive  action  thereon,  as  of  the  pro- 
longed and  studious  application  of  scientific  methods,  by  scien- 
tific men,  to  the  same  end.  In  making  its  awards  the  world 
does  not  ask  for  a  diploma,  but  for  a  result.  Such,  in  fact,  is  the 
whole  philosophy  of  the  ether  discovery. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  month  of  October,  1846,  members  of 
the  medical  staff  of  the  Massachusetts  General  Hospital  at 
Boston  were  much  importuned  by  a  young  surgeon  dentist  of 
that  city  for  permission  to  try  upon  some  of  the  hospital  patients 
the  effect  of  a  preparation  he  had  discovered.  He  asserted 
that  this  preparation  would  produce  insensibility  to  pain,  that 
he  had  tried  it  successfully  in  his  own  practice  in  extracting 
teeth,  and  that  he  had  fully  proved  it  to  be  perfectly  harm- 
less in  its  after  results  upon  the  patient.  In  the  language  of 
one  of  the  surgeons,  Dr.  Morton  "  haunted  "  them.  The  proposal 
itself  was  so  novel,  not  to  say  audacious,  when  coming  from 
one  outside  of  the  medical  profession,  so  contrary  to  all  the 
traditions  of  that  profession,  that  it  was  some  time  before 
consent  to  make  the  trial  could  be  had ;  but  Morton's  impor- 
tunities at  last  prevailed  with  Dr.  J.  C.  Warren,  the  eminent 

surgeon  in  charge,  who  agreed  to  make  the  experiment  at  the 
44 


OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

earliest  opportunity.  Dr.  W.  T.  G.  Morton  was  then  a  young 
man  of  twenty-six,  a  native  of  Charlton,  Massachusetts,  who 
had  studied  medicine  for  a  short  time  in  the  office  of  Dr. 
Charles  T.  Jackson,  and  had  attended  medical  lectures  at  the 
Massachusetts  Hospital,  the  better  to  qualify  himself  for  his 
chosen  profession  of  dentistry,  to  which  he  returned  with  re- 
newed zeal  after  concluding  his  studies  in  medicine  and  chem- 
istry with  Dr.  Jackson,  and  in  anatomy  at  the  hospital.  The 
acquaintance  he  had  thus  formed  with  members  of  the  medi- 
cal profession  was  no  doubt  of  advantage  to  Dr.  Morton  in 
procuring  for  him  a  hearing,  at  least;  but  it  is  well  established 
that  his  own  unaided  efforts  were,  at  this  critical  period  in  its 
history,  his  sole  reliance  in  obtaining  the  opportunity  he  sought 
of  testing  his  new  sleeping-potion.  Even  the  officers  of  the 
hospital  were  incredulous.  Morton  would  only  disclose  that 
his  preparation  was  to  be  inhaled ;  but  they  wisely  determined, 
as  it  turned  out,  to  make  the  experiment  in  the  interests  of 
humanity  as  well  as  of  medical  science. 

The  opportunity  soon  came.  A  patient  at  the  hospital,  hav- 
ing to  undergo  an  operation  for  the  removal  of  a  tumor  from 
the  neck,  was  brought  into  the  operating  theatre  on  Friday, 
October  16.  By  request  of  Dr.  Warren,  who  had  seasonably 
recollected  his  promise,  the  house  surgeon  had  invited  Dr. 
Morton  to  attend,  and  make  the  first  application  of  his  then 
unknown  compound.  It  may  readily  be  supposed  that  Dr. 
Morton  had  lost  no  time  in  presenting  himself  at  the  hospital. 
How  the  operation  was  performed,  how  its  success  was  first 
heralded  to  the  world,  will  be  best  understood  and  appreciated 
by  giving  here,  verbatim,  the  account  that  appeared  in  the  Bos- 
ton "Transcript"  of  October  17,  1846.  Several  other  journals 
have  been  consulted  without  finding  any  notice  whatever  of  the 
operation.  We  beg  the  reader's  attention  to  this  fact,  as  it  has 
an  important  bearing  not  only  upon  the  discovery  itself,  but 
also  upon  the  claim  of  priority  afterwards  advanced  by  another 
candidate  for  its  honors.  The  "  Transcript  "  said  :  — 

"  We  understand  that  Dr.  Morton,  at  the  invitation  of  Dr. 
Hayward  of  the  McLean  Hospital,  administered  his  prepara- 


WILLIAM  T.  G.   MORTON.  689 

tion  to  produce  sleep,  yesterday  morning,  to  a  man  who  had  a 
tumor  extracted  from  the  neck.  Our  informant,  who  conversed 
with  one  of  the  physicians  who  witnessed  the  operation,  states 
that  the  man,  after  inhaling  the  preparation  for  a  few  moments, 
was  lost  in  sleep,  giving  no  symptom  of  suffering  while  Dr. 
Warren  was  extracting  the  tumor.  He  was  totally  unconscious 
of  what  was  going  on  till  near  the  close  of  the  operation  (which 
lasted  longer  than  usual),  when  he  drew  a  long  sigh.  The 
unconscious  state  in  which  the  man  was  afforded  the  surgeon 
an  opportunity  to  perform  the  operation  expeditiously,  unin- 
terrupted by  any  struggles  or  shrinking  of  the  patient." 

On  the  day  following  the  first  operation,  a  similar  one  was 
performed  with  equal  success.  In  both  these  cases  the  inhala- 
tion of  Dr.  Morton's  preparation  was  followed  by  a  condition 
of  insensibility  to  pain  throughout  the  critical  part  of  the  op- 
eration. But  we  now  have  to  record  the  crowning  triumph 
achieved  by  Dr.  Morton,  and  we  will  do  it  in  the  language  of 
the  surgeon  who  performed  the  operation  of  amputating  the 
leg  of  a  female  patient ;  for  whatever  may  have  been  the  opin- 
ion of  medical  experts  in  regard  to  the  importance  of  the 
earlier  operations,  this  at  least  was  admitted  to  be  a  full  and 
critical  test  of  the  value  of  the  discovery  to  the  practice  of 
surgery,  and  as  such  its  result  was  awaited  with  the  greatest 
interest  by  unprofessional  as  well  as  professional  persons. 

Up  to  this  time  Dr.  Morton  had  been  administering  sulphuric 
ether  to  the  patients  without  letting  the  operating  surgeons  know 
more  than  what  was  indeed  evident,  that  it  was  some  highly 
volatile,  spirituous  liquid,  which  had  a  pungent,  though  not  dis- 
agreeable odor  when  allowed  to  escape  through  the  inhaling 
tube.  He  had,  in  fact,  excellent  reasons  for  pursuing  this 
course. 

Dr.  Hayward,  the  surgeon  who  subsequently  performed  the 
first  amputation,  now  determined  to  go  no  farther  in  the  dark; 
and  upon  being  put  in  charge  of  the  surgical  department  of  the 
hospital  he  refused  to  allow  the  surgical  patients  to  inhale  this 
preparation  of  Dr.  Morton  during  his  term  of  service,  unless  all 
the  surgeons  of  the  hospital  were  told  what  it  was,  and  were 


690  OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

satisfied  of  the  safety  of  using  it;  "for,"  says  Dr.  Hayward,  in 
his  paper  giving  an  account  of  this  operation,  "we  were  then 
ignorant  of  the  precise  nature  of  it.  Dr.  Warren  agreed  with  me 
as  to  the  propriety  of  this  course."  That  is  to  say,  Dr.  Mor- 
ton's preparation  had  been  twice  used  at  the  hospital  without 
knowledge  of  its  component  parts ;  or,  in  other  words,  it  was 
unknown  in  the  practice  of  surgery.  Dr.  Hayward  goes  on  to 
say  that  "  on  the  6th  of  November  Dr.  Morton  called  at  my 
house,  and  asked  me  if  I  was  willing  to  have  his  preparation 
inhaled  by  a  patient  whose  limb  I  was  to  amputate  on  the  fol- 
lowing day.  I  told  him  of  the  conversation  I  had  had  with  Dr. 
Warren  on  the  subject.  Dr.  Morton  at  once  said  that  he  was 
ready  to  let  us  know  what  the  article  was,  and  to  give  to  the 
surgeons  of  the  hospital  the  right  to  use  it  when  they  pleased. 
He  added  that  he  would  send  me  a  letter,  in  the  course  of  the 
day,  to  this  effect."  Dr.  Morton  was  as  good  as  his  word. 
The  proposal  was  maturely  considered  by  the  surgeons,  who 
were  unanimously  of  the  opinion  that  ether  should  be  inhaled 
by  the  patient  who  was  to  undergo  the  operation  on  that  day. 

The  old  and  (to  the  sufferer  who  had  to  endure  them  with  no 
other  strength  than  that  with  which  nature  had  endowed  him) 
appalling  methods  attendant  upon  a  capital  operation  are  too 
painful,  even  in  the  bare  relation,  for  us  to  dwell  upon.  There 
was  no  royal  road  under  the  dissecting  knife.  The  strong  man 
and  the  tender  woman  alike  must  submit  to  a  period  of  torture 
which  not  unfrequently  left  the  poor  maimed  human  being  flut- 
tering between  life  and  death.  To  the  agony  attending  the 
operation  itself  was  joined  that  terrible  tension  of  the  nerves 
under  which  the  patient  often  sunk  into  a  deadly  stupor  from 
which  no  skill  could  recall  him  to  life.  But  what  were  the  few 
whom  accidents  or  disease  brought  into  our  hospitals,  there  to 
be  treated  under  the  most  favorable  conditions,  when  compared 
with  the  numbers  of  maimed  and  crippled  sufferers  who  had  to 
submit  to  amputations  hurriedly  performed  on  the  field  of  bat- 
tle? At  the  very  moment  of  Morton's  discovery  hundreds  of 
our  soldiers  were  undergoing  in  Mexico  the  cruel  torture  of  the 
dissecting  knife.  We  shudder  to  think  how  much  suffering 


WILLIAM    T.  G.   MORTON.  691 

might  have  been  averted,  and  how  many  valuable  lives  saved  to 
the  world,  had  there  been  earlier  knowledge  of  the  power  of 
this  wonderful  anaesthesia 1  over  pain.  And  yet  we  are  asked  to 
believe  that  the  discovery  was  already  in  the  possession  of  a 
prominent  member  of  the  medical  fraternity  ! 

At  this  capital  operation,  the  first  performed  in  any  country 
with  the  aid  of  ether,  the  operating-room  was  crowded.  The 
principal  physicians  and  surgeons  of  the  city,  many  medical  stu- 
dents, besides  men  prominent  in  various  callings,  were  there  await- 
ing in  the  utmost  anxiety  the  result  of  the  experiment  they  were 
about  to  witness.  Dr.  Hayward  simply  told  them  that  it  had 
been  decided  to  allow  the  patient  to  inhale  an  article  which  was 
said  to  have  the  power  of  annulling  pain.  The  patient  was  then 
brought  in.  She  was  a  delicate-looking  girl  of  about  twenty 
years  of  age,  who  had  suffered  for  a  long  time  from  a  scrofulous 
disease  of  the  knee-joint.  The  mouth-piece  of  the  inhaling  in- 
strument was  put  into  her  mouth,  and  she  was  directed  to  take 
long  inspirations.  In  about  three  minutes  Dr.  Morton  said, 
"  She  is  ready."  A  deathlike  stillness  reigned  in  the  room  as 
Dr.  Hayward  began  the  operation  by  passing  his  knife  directly 
through  the  diseased  limb.  Upon  seeing  this  the  spectators 
seemed  to  stop  breathing.  The  patient  gave  no  sign  of  feeling 
or  consciousness  whatever,  but  looked  like  one  in  a  deep,  quiet 
sleep.  One  long  and  audible  murmur  announced  the  relief 
experienced  by  the  audience.  When  the  last  artery  was  being 
tied,  the  patient  groaned,  and  consciousness  soon  returned;  but 
she  was  wholly  ignorant,  and  at  first  would  not  believe,  that  the 
surgeon's  work  was  done,  and  that  the  leg  had  been  removed 
while  she  slept. 

The  discovery  was  of  course  carried  far  and  wide  with  all 
speed,  since  upon  such  certain  demonstration  of  its  invaluable 
worth  to  society  as  had  been  given,  no  other  topic  could  begin 
to  claim  the  same  interest  with  the  whole  public,  learned  or 
unlearned,  as  this.  In  Europe  it  was  received  with  the  greatest 
enthusiasm,  and  was  speedily  introduced  into  the  hospitals  of 

1  The  use  of  this  word  in  etherization  was  first  proposed  !jy  Dr.  O.  \V.  Holmes. 


692  OUR   GREAT    BENEFACTORS. 

England,  France,  and  Germany  with  the  same  flattering  results 
as  had  followed  its  use  in  our  own  country.  Before  the  learned 
bodies  of  those  countries  the  discussion  of  its  merits  and  its  pos- 
sibilities superseded  for  the  time  every  other  question.  But  while 
the  world  was  thus  congratulating  itself  upon  so  auspicious  an 
event>  a  most  bitter  controversy  had  begun  in  the  United  States 
as  to  who  was  entitled  to  the  credit  of  the  discovery.  After  the 
second  surgical  operation  had  been  performed  at  the  Massachu- 
setts Hospital,  and  not  until  then,  a  new  claimant  appeared  in 
Dr.  Charles  T.  Jackson,  with  whom  it  has  been  mentioned  that 
Dr.  Morton  had  studied,  and  who  had  also  laid  claim  to  the  dis- 
covery of  the  magnetic  telegraph  in  opposition  to  Professor 
Morse.  Dr.  Jackson  now  asserted  that  he  had  not  only  discov- 
ered the  anaesthetic  properties  of  ether  himself,  but  that  he  had 
explained  them  to  Dr.  Morton,  and  had  suggested  to  him  the 
use  of  ether  in  extracting  teeth.  Dr.  Morton  denied  to  Dr. 
Jackson  any  further  agency  in  the  discovery  than  some  general 
information  upon  the  chemical  properties  of  ether  dropped  in 
the  course  of  conversation.  It  appeared  in  evidence  that  not 
only  had  Dr.  Jackson  refused  to  sanction  Dr.  Morton's  efforts  to 
make  the  discovery  public,  but  he  had  distinctly  discountenanced 
them  as  reckless  and  untrustworthy.  It  was  also  shown  that 
Dr.  Morton  had  been  experimenting  with  ether  for  some  time 
before  applying  to  Dr.  Jackson  for  specific  information  in  regard 
to  the  best  way  of  inhaling  it.  For  this  information,  given  in 
his  capacity  of  chemist  and  without  reservation,  Dr.  Jackson 
made  a  fixed  charge  of  $500;  but  upon  the  representations 
of  mutual  friends  of  the  advantage  to  him  of  Dr.  Jackson's 
name  and  influence,  Dr.  Morton  generously  agreed  to  allow 
the  insertion  of  Dr.  Jackson's  name  as  joint  discoverer  with 
himself,  in  the  caveat  for  a  patent,  Dr.  Jackson  then  or  sub- 
sequently assigning  his  own  interest  in  the  discovery  to  Dr. 
Morton  for  a  stipulated  consideration.  In  November,  1846,  a 
patent  was  issued  to  Dr.  Morton ;  but  in  consequence  of  the  re- 
newal of  the  controversy  with  Dr.  Jackson,  who  had  disavowed 
his  previous  engagements,  the  patentee's  rights  were  so  gen- 
erally disregarded  that  in  1849  he  found  himself  obliged  to 


WILLIAM    T.  G.  MORTON.  693 

appeal  to  Congress  for  a  pecuniary  compensation  in  room  of  the 
valueless  patent  which  he  now  offered  to  surrender. 

Upon  these  facts,  with  all  the  voluminous  testimony  surround- 
ing them,  several  reports  are  of  record.  One  emanates  from 
the  Trustees  of  the  Massachusetts  General  Hospital,  who  gave, 
by  a  unanimous  voice,  the  honor  of  the  discovery  to  Dr.  Mor- 
ton. One  year  later,  upon  request  of  Dr.  Jackson,  they  reviewed 
their  first  decision,  and  unanimously  confirmed  it. 

In  Congress,  from  1849  to  l%54>  inclusive,  two  reports  were 
made  by  committees  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  the  testi- 
mony in  each  case  being  exhaustively  considered,  affirming  the 
right  of  Dr.  Morton  and  recommending  compensation.  Two 
committees  of  the  Senate  concurred  in  the  reports  of  the 
House.  Bills  were  reported  in  both  bodies,  and  were  lost  in 
the  mass  of  unfinished  business.  Worn  out  and  hopeless  of 
any  action  on  the  part  of  Congress,  Dr.  Morton,  by  advice  of 
the  President,  brought  suit  against  an  army  surgeon  for  using 
ether  in  a  government  hospital,  in  order  to  establish  a  direct 
claim  for  compensation.  He  recovered  judgment,  but  nothing 
else.  In  1863,  Dr.  Morton's  patent  having  in  the  meantime  ex- 
pired, the  matter  was  again  brought  before  Congress.  Once 
more  the  decision  was  in  Dr.  Morton's  favor ;  but  no  substantial 
aid  to  the  now  disheartened  and  bankrupt  discoverer  followed, 
and  had  it  not  been  for  the  generous  action  of  the  medical  pro- 
fession of  the  country  in  setting  on  foot  for  him  a  national  testi- 
monial, the  discoverer  of  etherization  in  surgery  would  perhaps 
have  ended  his  days  in  poverty.  He  also  received  from  the 
French  Academy  the  Monthyon  prize  in  the  form  of  their 
largest  gold  medal.  A  similar  prize,  2,50x3  francs,  was  also 
awarded  to  Dr.  Jackson  "  for  his  observations  and  experiments 
upon  the  anaesthetic  effects  of  sulphuric  ether." 

Dr.  Morton  died  in  1868,  after  undergoing  a  series  of  trials, 
persecutions,  and  misfortunes  almost  unexampled  in  the  event- 
ful lives  of  great  public  benefactors.  Received  first  with  in- 
credulity, then  with  hostility,  by  a  large  part  of  the  medical 
world,  the  greatness  of  his  discovery  soon  overwhelmed  all 
opposition ;  but  the  indefatigable  discoverer  had  to  contend 


694  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

long  and  manfully  against  professional  bigotry,  the  envy  of 
little  minds,  the  force  of  old  traditions,  or  a  conservatism  which 
is  startled  by  every  innovation.  The  opposition  to  Morton  was 
both  able  and  unscrupulous.  His  enemies  denounced  and  ridi- 
culed him  in  the  same  breath,  —  denounced  him  for  wishing  to 
secure  for  himself  and  his  family  the  fruits  of  his  discovery; 
ridiculed  him  for  his  "  audacity,"  "  recklessness,"  and  "  pre- 
sumption" in  making  that  inestimable  boon  known  to  the  world. 
From  first  to  last  his  efforts  to  secure  suitable  recognition  from 
the  public  or  the  nation  were  thwarted  by  the  active  hostility  of 
a  rival  whose  claim  has  been  again  and  again  sifted  until  noth- 
ing remains  but  a  bare  suggestion.  Be  it  ever  so  great,  of  what 
advantage  to  the  world,  let  us  ask,  is  the  knowledge  that  is 
withheld  from  it  ?  Dr.  Jackson's  bore  fruit  only  through  the 
greater  acuteness  and  persevering  energy  of  Dr.  Morton.  While 
there  is  no  evidence  that  Dr.  Jackson  could  or  would  have  ad- 
vanced the  knowledge  of  etherization  one  step  farther  than  was 
known  to  all  the  medical  world,1  it  remains  more  than  probable 
that  but  for  Dr.  Morton's  active  entrance  into  the  field  this 
grandest  discovery  of  the  age  might  have  been  still  an  un- 
solved enigma.  To  this  conclusion  all  the  earlier  and  later 
investigation  of  the  subject  upon  its  merits  has  inevitably  led ; 
and  while  not  acting  in  that  spirit  of  enlightened  generosity 
which  had  characterized  the  action  of  the  French  Government 
towards  Daguerre  and  other  eminent  discoverers,  our  own  has 
said,  through  its  legislative  and  executive  branches,  and  has 
placed  it  upon  its  records,  that  Dr.  W.  T.  G.  Morton  is.  the 
actual  discoverer  of  etherization  in  medicine.2 


1  "  The  first  discovery  of  the  use  of  ether  by  inhalation  is  claimed  for  Sir  H.  Davy. 
The  liquid  is  said  to  have  been  known  to  Raymond  Sully,  who  lived  in  the  thir- 
teenth century.     It  was  Dr.  Frobenious,  in  1730,  who  first  drew  the   attention  of 
chemists  to  this  curious  liquor,  and  he  described  several  of  its  properties.     In  his 
paper  it  was  first  called  Ether." —  MUSPRATT.     Morton  first  gave  his  discovery  the 
name  of  Letheon. 

2  We  can  allow  but  the  space  of  a  note  to  the  claim  of  Dr.  Horace  Wells,  which 
is  thus  ably  summarized  in  the  "  Congressional  Report : "  "  That  Dr.  Horace  Wells 
did  not  make  any  discovery  of  the  anaesthetic  properties  of  sulphuric  ether,  which 
lie  himself  considered  reliable,  and  which  he  thought  proper  to  give  to  the  world  ; 


ALEXANDER    GRAHAM    BELL. 


ALEXANDER   GRAHAM    BELL.  697 

There  is  in  the  Public  Garden  of  the  City  of  Boston  a  beauti- 
ful monument,  dedicated  to  and  perpetuating  the  discovery  of 
ether  as  an  anaesthetic.  It  is  a  superb  memorial  of  the  skill  of 
the  sculptor  Ward.  Public  opinion  will,  we  think,  sustain  us  in 
the  wish  to  see  an  important  omission  supplied  by  placing 
thereon,  the  name  of  the  discoverer,  William  Thomas  Green 
Morton.  The  monument  will  then  be  complete. 


ALEXANDER   GRAHAM    BELL. 

AT  the  Centennial  Exhibition  held  at  Philadelphia  in  1876, 
**  commemorative  largely  of  the  world's  progress,  as  well 
as  of  strictly  American  achievement  and  resources  in  every 
conceivable  field  of  labor,  was  first  seen  an  instrument  that 
attracted  marked  attention  by  its  novelty,  as  well  as  universal 
wonder  by  what  it  could  be  made  to  do.  Had  the  Sphinx 
opened  its  granite  lips,  surprise  could  hardly  have  been  greater 
or  more  genuine ;  for  this  machine  could  transmit  articulate 
speech  from  one  point  to  another  with  absolute  fidelity,  thus 
surpassing  all  the  conceptions  of  physicists,  while  unscientific 
people  hardly  knew  whether  science  had  compassed  another 
miracle,  or  whether  they  were  being  cheated  with  some  clever  de- 
vice. Indeed,  it  was  one  of  those  amazing  discoveries  that,  had  it 
occurred  in  the  days  of  the  Inquisition,  would  have  brought  the 
inventor  under  suspicion  of  dealing  in  sorcery.  This  instrument 
was  the  now  famous  Speaking  Telephone  of  Professor  Alexan- 
der Graham  Bell. 

In  order  to  convey  something  like  a  proper  idea  of  the  way 
in  which  the  telephone  struck  eminent  scientific  thinkers  and 
workers,  we  will  reproduce  the  first  experience  of  Sir  William 

that  his  experiments  were  confined  to  nitrous  oxide,  but  did  not  show  it  to  be  an 
efficient  and  reliable  anaesthetic  agent,  proper  to  be  used  in  surgical  operations 
and  in  obstetrical  cases." 


698  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

Thompson,  himself  an  eminent  electrician  and  inventor,  had 
with  Bell's  original  instrument ;  and  we  will  give  Sir  William's 
own  language,  as  addressed  to  the  British  Association  at  Glas- 
gow, in  September,  1876.  We  may  then  be  better  able  to 
judge  of  the  impression  made  by  the  telephone  upon  the  gen- 
eral public. 

"  In  the  Department  of  Telegraphs  in  the  United  States," 
says  Sir  William  Thompson,  "  I  saw  and  heard  Mr.  Elisha 
Gray's  electric  telephone,  of  wonderful  construction,  which  can 
repeat  four  despatches  at  the  same  time  in  the  Morse  code ;  and 
with  some  improvements  in  detail  this  instrument  is  evidently 
capable  of  a  fourfold  delivery.  In  the  Canadian  Department  I 
heard  'To  be  or  not  to  be?  ...  There's  the  rub,'  uttered 
through  a  telegraphic  wire ;  and  its  pronunciation  by  electricity 
only  made  the  rallying  tone  of  the  monosyllables  more  em- 
phatic. The  wire  also  repeated  some  extracts  from  New  York 
papers.  With  my  own  ears  I  heard  all  this,  distinctly  articu- 
lated through  the  slender  circular  disk  formed  by  the  armature 
of  an  electro-magnet.  It  was  my  fellow-juryman,  Professor 
Watson,  who  at  the  other  extremity  of  the  line  uttered  these 
words  in  a  loud,  distinct  voice,  while  applying  his  mouth  to  a 
tightly  stretched  membrane  provided  with  a  small  piece  of  soft 
iron,  which  executed  movements  corresponding  to  the  sound- 
vibrations  of  the  air,  close  to  an  electro-magnet  introduced  into 
the  circuit." 

This  discovery  he  calls  "  the  wonder  of  wonders  in  electric 
telegraphy,"  so  that  we  may  rest  assured  in  respect  to  its  strik- 
ing novelty  in  the  scientific  world,  although  familiarity  has  so 
far  worn  off  that  novelty  that  we  can  hardly  hope  to  reproduce, 
even  in  a  slight  degree,  the  extraordinary  effect  caused  by  the 
first  achievements  of  the  telephone;  yet  the  public  had  been 
for  a  long  time  in  possession  of  that  simple  toy,  the  string  tele- 
phone, which,  to  unscientific  minds  at  least,  seemed  the  clew 
conducting  to  the  greater  discovery. 

The  telephone  exhibited  at  Philadelphia  by  Bell  with  such 
striking  results  had  reached  only  the  first  stages  of  develop- 
ment. Two  instruments  were  required,  —  one  to  send,  the  other 


ALEXANDER   GRAHAM    BELL.  699 

to  receive,  the  spoken  message.  Consequently  two  would  have 
to  be  used  at  each  telephone  station.  Many  improvements  have 
since  been  made  by  Bell  and  others.  "  The  prodigious  results 
attained  with  the  Bell  telephones,  which  were  at  first  discredited 
by  many  scientific  men,  necessarily  provoked,  as  soon  as  their 
authenticity  was  proved,  innumerable  researches  on  the  part  of 
inventors,  and  even  of  those  who  were  originally  the  most  in- 
credulous. A  host  of  improvements  have  consequently  been 
suggested." 

It  is  claimed  that  the  idea  of  the  telephone  is  as  old  as  the 
world  itself,  and  that  it  was  employed  in  some  form  to  convey 
the  decrees  of  the  pagan  oracles  to  those  who  consulted  them, 
perhaps  by  means  of  a  speaking-tube.  Even  as  early  as  1667 
Robert  Hooke  seems  to  have  made  some  progress  in  the  study 
of  acoustics,  as  related  to  the  transmission  of  sound;  for  he 
asserts  that  with  the  help  of  a  "  distended  wire  he  had  propa- 
gated sound  to  a  very  considerable  distance  in  an  instant,  or 
with  seemingly  as  quick  a  motion  as  that  of  light." 

But  the  string  telephone,  which  was  so  freely  hawked  about 
the  streets  a  few  years  ago,  and  was  regarded  only  as  an  inter- 
esting plaything,  seems  to  have  been  the  first  practical  form 
that  the  coming  discovery  had  assumed.  This  appeared  in 
Europe  in  1867.  Its  principle  is  too  simple  to  need  explana- 
tion. Under  the  best  conditions,  speech  could  be  exchanged 
by  it  to  a  distance  of  170  yards.  The  speaking-tube  or  mouth- 
piece, the  diaphragm  to  catch  and  transmit  vibrations  of  the 
voice,  and  the  connecting  chord,  are  all  found  in  the  string  tele- 
phone, which  was,  so  to  speak,  the  forerunner  of  the  electric 
telephone ;  and  since  that  invention  has  come  into  general  use 
the  string  telephone  is  again  the  fashion,  as  it  succeeds  in 
conveying  to  the  unskilled  mind,  and  in  the  simplest  manner, 
those  principles  of  acoustics  common  to  both  methods  of 
transmission. 

Up  to  the  time  of  Bell's  invention  the  transmission  of  speech 
could  only  be  effected  with  the  aid  of  acoustic  tubes  or  of  the 
string  telephone.  Yet  the  idea  of  electrical  transmission  seems 
clearly  expressed  by  M.  Charles  Bourseul,  in  a  paper  published 


700  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

by  him  in  1854.  He  says:  "  I  have,  for  example,  asked  myself 
whether  speech  itself  may  not  be  transmitted  by  electricity ;  in 
a  word,  if  what  is  spoken  in  Vienna  may  not  be  heard  in  Paris. 
The  thing  is  practicable  in  this  way:  Suppose  that  a  man 
speaks  near  a  movable  disk  sufficiently  flexible  to  lose  none  of 
the  vibrations  of  the  voice,  that  this  disk  alternately  makes  and 
breaks  the  currents  from  a  battery;  you  may  have  at  a  dis- 
tance another  disk,  which  will  simultaneously  execute  the  same 
vibrations.  .  .  .  Reproduce  at  the  one  end  of  the  line  the  vi- 
brations of  air  caused  at  the  other,  and  speech  will  be  trans- 
mitted, however  complex  the  mechanism  may  be  by  which  it  is 
effected." 

Still,  we  see  that,  notwithstanding  the  telephone  existed  in  a 
crude  form,  and  that  the  idea  of  electrical  force  as  the  agent 
destined  for  advancing  it  to  the  point  of  great  utility,  was  slowly 
germinating  in  some  minds  at  least,  it  was  not  for  twenty  years 
after  the  remarkable  statements  we  have  quoted  from  M.  Bour- 
seul,  that  the  problem  approached  practical  solution,  and  not 
until  1876  that  it  was  finally  solved  in  the  manner  we  have 
already  related.  The  demonstration  then  came,  not  from  Eu- 
rope, but  from  America.  In  that  year,  and  in  fact  on  the  same 
day,  both  Professor  Bell  and  Elisha  Gray  filed  caveats  in  the 
Patent  Office  at  Washington,  for  a  speaking  telephone.  It  is 
not  our  province  to  discuss  the  question  of  priority  to  which 
this  simultaneous  application  gave  rise.  It  seems  certain  that 
Gray  had  invented  a  perfectly  practicable  telephonic  system  of 
his  own  at  least  as  early  as  Professor  Bell.  The  patent,  on 
account  of  some  informality  on  the  part  of  his  distinguished 
competitor  for  this  high  honor,  was  however  issued  to  Bell, 
who,  as  we  have  seen,  exhibited  his  invention  a  few  months 
later  at  Philadelphia  in  working  condition,  although,  as  we  have 
shown,  later  improvements  were  required  to  adapt  for  general 
use. 

Mr.  A.  Graham  Bell's  own  account  of  his  discovery  of  the 
telephone  is  substantially  the  following.  It  is  not  the  result, 
he  says,  of  a  spontaneous  and  fortunate  conception,  but  of  long 
and  patient  studies  in  acoustic  science  and  of  the  labors  of  the 


ALEXANDER   GRAHAM    BELL.  701 

physicists  who  preceded  him.1  His  father,  Mr.  Alexander  M. 
Bell,  of  Edinburgh,  had  already  made  this  science  a  study  with 
the  most  interesting  results.,  among  which  that  of  instilling  into 
his  son  a  taste  for  these  experiments  must  take  a  foremost 
place.  Bell  first  invented  an  electric  harmonica,  with  a  key- 
board, that  when  set  in  motion  could  reproduce  sounds  corre- . 
spending  to  the  notes  struck,  as  in  the  piano-forte.  He  next 
turned  his  attention  to  the  idea  of  making  the  electro-magnet 
transmit  audible  sounds,  as  had  long  been  done  by  the  Morse 
Sounders,  —  by  applying  this  system  to  his  electric  harmonica. 
By  employing  an  intensifying  instrument  at  the  receiving  sta- 
tion, Bell  thought  it  would  be  possible  to  obtain  through  a 
single  wire  simultaneous  transmission  of  sounds  produced  by 
the  action  of  the  voice.  This  idea  was  realized  almost  at  the 
same  time  by  M.  Paul  Lacour,  Elisha  Gray,  Edison,  and  Var- 
ley.  Mr.  Bell's  study  of  electric  telephones  really  dates  from 
this  time.  Other  claimants  have  appeared  in  Mr.  John  Ca- 
mack,  Signer  Manzetti,  Mr.  Drawbaugh,  and  in  Professor 
Dolbear,  of  Tufts  College,  Massachusetts. 

Professor  Bell's  experiments  were  conducted  in  the  laboratory 
of  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology,  —  an  institution 
yet  young,  but  having  already  graduated  some  of  the  rising  men 
of  the  day  in  the  various  departments  of  applied  science.  Here 
was  perfected  the  instrument  exhibited  at  Philadelphia.  The 
use  of  a  voltaic  battery  was  at  length  discarded  by  Bell,  who 
found  that  equal  or  better  results  might  be  had  with  an  induction 
current,  produced  by  permanent  magnets.  The  battery  tele- 
phone has  been  treated  of  in  a  preceding  article ;  but  it  should 
be  mentioned  that,  having  found  induced  currents  more  favor- 
able to  telephonic  transmission  than  voltaic  currents,  Mr.  Edi- 
son, by  an  ingenious  contrivance,  soon  transformed  the  cur- 
rent passing  from  his  battery  through  the  sender  into  induced 
currents. 

Professor  Bell's  experiments  in  electrical  science  have  pur- 
sued a  wide  range,  and  have  shown  him  to  be  an  original  and 

1  See  Mr.  Bell's  paper  in  the  "  Journal  o£  the  Society  of  Telegraphic  Engineers," 
TO!,  vi.  pp.  390,  391. 


702  OUR   GREAT   BENEFACTORS. 

penetrating  thinker.  During  the  fatal  illness  of  the  lamented 
Garfield,  Professor  Bell  made  a  number  of  experiments  with  an 
electrical  apparatus,  with  the  view  of  detecting  the  exact  posi- 
tion of  the  assassin's  bullet ;  but  in  this  instance  no  tangible 
results  rewarded  the  hopes  which  had  been  raised  in  the  minds 
of  the  surgeons,  who  had  been  baffled  in  every  attempt  to  locate 
the  ball.  Professor  Bell's  experiments  have  also  included  a 
method  of  producing  artificial  respiration  and  of  effecting  sound 
by  the  action  of  light ;  but  it  is  by  the  speaking  telephone  that 
he  is  most  widely  and  favorably  known  to  the  world  at  large  as 
a  public  benefactor.  Certainly  no  modern  invention  has  been 
received  with  more  universal  appreciation ;  for  its  uses  are  as  un- 
limited as  are  the  requirements  of  our  every-day  affairs  in  com- 
municating with  one  another,  and  it  has  effected  a  saving  in 
time  and  labor  not  readily  to  be  estimated  in  dollars  and  cents. 
Truly  this  is  an  age  of  marvels ;  but  the  end  is  not  yet 


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